Dialysis Nurse to Nurse practitioner

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Hi everyone,

This is the first time i am posting in allnurses, i am a big fan of allnurses and read it all the time when i have any doubts.

I am a chronic dialysis nurse with more than 1 year experience in Texas, now i am planning to get into a nurse practitioner program. i would like to be a Nephrology nurse practitioner.

So how can i become a nephrology nurse practitioner as i couldn't find any programs which gives nephrology as a specialty.( eg: like pediatric nurse practitioner, psychiatry NP...etc). Also is it a good idea to do NP with only dialysis experience, is there any one who did NP with only dialysis experience.

Pls help me with this and correct me if I am wrong about anything.

Thank You

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

Hi Aj1993! Welcome to AN.com as a member! Glad to have ya!

You're way out of my league, but if the Mods don't move your thread, check out this forum:

https://allnurses.com/dialysis-renal-urology/

Or maybe this forum:

https://allnurses.com/student-nurse-practitioner/

The best of luck to you!

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Specializes in Home Health (PDN), Camp Nursing.

Every NP I have met that was in a speciality, four so far. They worked in nephrology, pediatric pulmonology, gynecology, and dermatology. They were just general "primary care" nurse practitioners. They got into the speciality with on the job training and their background. Unless the state or accreditation agent mandates some different level of training then there is no real drive to start a school program for a speciality that is entirely optional. Especially for a speciality as small as nephrology. I'm sure professional organizations would offer some sort of certificate. As far as the different education course entirely I don't think it exists for most specialties.

This is all to my understanding (which is limited at best)

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

NP schools only exist for "wide specialties". There are no such things as "nephrology NP school" or "dermatology NP school". For nephrology, you can go to Family NP or Primary Care Adults/Geriatrics NP. Or, if you would like to work mostly in acute care setting, Acute Care Adults/Geriatrics NP. Then, after you're done, you get hired and trained for a specialty.

Ask doctors you're working with what kind of NP diploma they would prefer. Then go accordingly, avoid too-easy-to-be-truth diploma mills.

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Thank you so much, that helped....

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Specializes in Critical Care and ED.

Here's my 10c. I used to be a dialysis nurse but was in the acute side. I mostly did treatments on patients in the ICU. I then went on to become an ICU nurse. All of our nephrologists didn't just see patients in the clinics, but also inpatient, including the ICU. As a nephrology NP you might benefit from having that acute experience. There are some family NPs that go on to do a specialty, but more often now it's acute NPs that are being hired for specialties. Perhaps you can get some acute dialysis experience and consider doing the AGACNP program. There are a huge number of inpatients requiring dialysis and they generally have a higher acuity. This includes patients on CRRT and plasmapheresis which you don't get to see in a chronic clinic. That's just my perspective.

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thank you

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I'm a nephrology APRN x11.5 years now - look back at some of my posts. i had NO neph experience prior to taking this job.

Will move your post also to student NP forum

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