Can a School Nurse become an FNP?

[uthscsa2011]

Hello all,

The reason I am asking is because I am a school nurse and I want to become an FNP before 2015 when they change the degree requirement from MSN to Doctorate. But with a school nurse's schedule, is it possible to go back to school? There is an online program I am interested in but I would still have to do clinicals during the week? I have never worked in a hospital, so I would not be able to work on the weekends bedside bc I have already tried and they have all told me "you need to drop the school nurse job because we need to train you and training is 12-18 weeks following a mentor's schedule"...not something they could do if I'm working 7-5 M-F. So getting a hospital job on the weekends is out of the question. Havve any of you school nurse did this before? And if so how? Any other suggestions?

[TashaLPN2006RN2012, ASN, RN]

Hello all,

The reason I am asking is because I am a school nurse and I want to become an FNP before 2015 when they change the degree requirement from MSN to Doctorate.

There is no set change in place for an FNP to have to get a Doctorate before 2015. This is a very large misconception. It is still a "recommendation", not a requirement.

[zmansc, ASN, RN]

As TashaLPN2006RN2012 mentioned the 2015 date is a "proposed target date". There is very little that indicates anything will change on that date. That doesn't mean that it won't change at some point, but my research did not turn up any states implementing the 2015 date, no legislation has changed, and as far as I looked (at states I currently live in or might consider moving to) there was no indication they would be implementing that date anytime soon.

As for can a school nurse become a FNP. Yes, absolutely. I have several school nurses as cohorts in my class, and know of several more who are in either the same program but different years or who are going to other programs. I think the school nurse schedule fits better for the didactic portion of the program than it does the clinical portion, but that is probably also program dependent.

My schools program is split, you do the didactic portion until completed then you do the clinical portion. In a program like mine, many students continue to work full time (or as close as they can) during the didactic portion and then quit all together to finish the clinical portion so they can focus and have all of their time available for clinicals. Others, do clinicals on certain days and work on other days.

I think the hardest part for you will be to find preceptors who are able to make their schedules work with yours. You might check/consider NPs at urgent care clinics or in ER settings for some/most of your clinicals because they would have hours that would work around yours. Another possible option if your employer would allow it would be to job split with another school nurse, you take two or three days once clinical start and they take the others. That way you can do clinicals 2-3 days/wk, and work the rest.

Good luck!