Conflicted about NP Track

[chaseandrew3, BSN]

Hi!

I’m writing to see if any practicing NPs or even current NP students could give me some advice! I’m about to start my MSN in August and am currently enrolled in the Acute Care track. My background is in critical care, so it made the most sense for me, but now thinking more about it, I am conflicted between Acute Care and Adult Gero.

My main concern is that I don’t want to be limited in terms of areas of practice and am worried that with an Acute Care speciality, this will limit the places I could potentially work.

Does anyone have a good breakdown of the two and what job opportunities / outlook might look like?

Thanks!

[Oldmahubbard]

These are 2 very different roles.

It's in the nature of APRN education that we are limited by our license where we can practice. The roles are very specific, unlike PA's.

I'm a PMHNP. I don't deliver babies, and I don't intubate.

It seems to me that geriatrics is broader than acute care. Probably better hours, too.

[db2xs]

I don't have direct experience of this myself but when I was working as an RN in an acute setting, there were several NPs there who had specialised in family primary care. I'm not sure how they made the transition but obviously it can be done.

I imagine if someone doesn't know for certain what they want to specialise in, something more general might serve them well. It's sort of like doing med-surg nursing first before branching off. For myself, I knew what I wanted to do with my advanced degree, so it wasn't an issue.

[RN58140]

I'll admit to be a little confused at your question. To my knowledge under the consensus model there are no longer just "acute care NP's" and "gerontology NP's." The specialty is now adult-gero acute care NP. I guess i'm confused since you stated you were conflicted between acute care vs gero care but maybe you meant that you felt only being eligible to work acute care areas unlike say an FNP would be limiting?

AGACNP's work in different settings besides just a hospital, it's the patient population that matters not the setting. You will specialize in caring for acutely ill population from ages 13 on up. You could work out of say a cardiology group office and round on their inpatient's or work for an intensivist group or a hospitalist group and so on.

You can always go back for a post masters in primary care or the like if you want too, or there are schools that offer dual FNP-AGACNP tracks.