DNP vs. MSN and FNP vs. WHNP-what's a girl to choose

Specialties Doctoral

Published

I have been a labor and delivery nurse for 5 years and I KNOW I only want to work in women's health.

It's what I've always wanted to do and that's why I went L&D to begin with. That being said, my fellow coworkers all discourage me from going for the WHNP and tell me I won't be able to find a job and will wish I would have done the FNP.

I do suspect that a large part of finding that first job will come down to networking during your clinicals but as my husband is active duty military we will likely move every 2 years. There are GS positions on base for WHNP that being prior AF myself I would have preferential hiring. Im hoping this could be my niche? (Obviously there are many veterans that are NPs, I just mean to say that I don't know if most people know about these jobs unless they have been around someone military etc.).

Long story short...I feel that I would enjoy school so much more and get so more out of it if I could do the WHNP route and focus more on what I am interested in. Sorry for the long post ya'll- So much conflicting information. The last thing I want after all the work/$$ is to find there are no jobs for me.

Also should I go for the MSN or DNP? I've heard a lot of debate over this as well.

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