Does everybody want to be a NP?

allnurses Guide · Nov 7, 2015

The thing that saddens me about direct entry is the realization that a fresh BSN grad has absolutely no clue what they don't know. Those of you who didn't go direct entry knows exactly what I mean.

Absolutely true, but it extends past that, and in my experience teaching NP students didactically and clinically is that many experienced nurses don't realize what they don't know until they take advanced practice classes and start clinical rotations.

ixchel · Nov 7, 2015

Absolutely true, but it extends past that, and in my experience teaching NP students didactically and clinically is that many experienced nurses don't realize what they don't know until they take advanced practice classes and start clinical rotations.

Otherwise, there would be no need for school. :)

FNP2bMRL3 · Nov 7, 2015

often an RN can make more than an NP

Your statement is evidenced by..........? There are NO NP's making equal or less. NPs make $30k more on average than RNs do when their variables are similar!

Farawyn · Nov 8, 2015

Your statement is evidenced by..........? There are NO NP's making equal or less. NPs make $30k more on average than RNs do when their variables are similar!

When I left the clinic my pay was the same as our NP.

Then again, I had been with the hospital 20 years, she had been there 8.

ETA: I don't have my BSN yet. When I got hired in 1993, I got extra pay for my BA in Psych.

ixchel · Nov 8, 2015

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the pay difference appears to be geographically related. There is typically a $30k difference in starting rates between RN and NP where I am. However, if an RN picked up one shift a week with bonus pay (skipping all differentials), on starting salary at my hospital, would increase yearly income by just under $32,000 per year. If the shifts picked up were always weekend nights, it would be increased by $34,400 per year. They'd make similar money at that point.

sosweetrn · Nov 8, 2015

The beauty of our profession is the vast opportunities! Everyone has a different niche and that's a great thing! In healthcare everyone from the physician to the CNA has the same goal of taking care of patients. Different responsibilities/titles but all necessary.

allnurses Guide · Nov 8, 2015

It's hard to make a direct apples to apples comparison.

At a major teaching hospital around here a tenured RN working with a night/weekend differential and picking up an extra 12 a week would equal just oiver the starting base salary of an NP without incentives (working a 40 hour week of 36 plus 4 hour admin time). That RN is capped out on salary and working 17 full days extra a year without incentives.

I am fortunate to be a partner in practice. I work my 40 hours plus a small amount of call. I make considerably more than most RNs in base salary and that accounts for only 55-65% of my income.

Again, no perspectiveNPs should do it for the money or the hours, but on the whole most NPs do pretty well financially and the ceiling is most definitely higher, look at the average salary of dermatology NPs in the Advanced survey for 2014.

chiromed0 · Nov 8, 2015

Boy, I don't experience that at ALL from NP's either as preceptors or from myself (about a month out). I'm already a D.C. and I can see when doc's tend to do that, and it's actually not as often as I once thought. I just don't see this situation much. If anything I get that from instructors who have a DNP vs MSN-?NP. I have a few arguements about that situation as well but it's the trend. I hope you have better experiences from different NP's, all mine have been good.

Jules A, MSN · Nov 8, 2015

Again, no perspectiveNPs should do it for the money or the hours, but on the whole most NPs do pretty well financially and the ceiling is most definitely higher, look at the average salary of dermatology NPs in the Advanced survey for 2014.

Derm must be da bomb. Its nearly impossible for med students to secure a residency also. My hat is off to them because although its super interesting, and of course I love that they make bank, its almost as icky as podiatry to me.

Farawyn · Nov 8, 2015

Derm must be da bomb. Its nearly impossible for med students to secure a residency also. My hat is off to them because although its super interesting, and of course I love that they make bank, its almost as icky as podiatry to me.

Icky in a good way, though. :bag:

allnurses Guide · Nov 8, 2015

Derm must be da bomb. Its nearly impossible for med students to secure a residency also. My hat is off to them because although its super interesting, and of course I love that they make bank, its almost as icky as podiatry to me.

The irony is that as one of the most lucrative medical specialities they strictly limit supply but because NPs are revenue generators, derm physicians love to hire them. Win win for the money train.

AngryAngel · Nov 8, 2015

I was a nurse for over 27 years before I graduated with an MSN NP degree. I was 55 years old. My last 16 years have definitely been the best of a great career. I wouldn't have done it any other way. What I do now is teach, and take care of indigent people, better then I could have ever done just as a nurse. Now one thing that is not expressed is that 20% of NP who graduate never practice as NP's. Why is that? Because the field is constantly trying to push "Nursing Practice" as the way for the NP to look at the practice she will eventually preform. I had to study Rosemary Porifice's "Theory of Human Becoming." Ever heard of it? I doubt it as it is the biggest collection of hogwash nursing has ever come up with. That was truly wasted time. Yet big wig nursing educators want the MSN and now the DNP to have all this Nursing research background. So when you get out and go to work with a doctor he wants none of it. Medicine in America is a business. It is a grueling, grinding business that is supposed to make its fully licensed professionals big bucks. The doctors in Russia are 90% women. In England the doctors are comfortable, but most are not very wealthy. There are 33 industrial countries in the world. Thirty-two of them have some form of universal health care. Only one does not. You are living in it. Yet on a per capita basis we pay the highest in the world for health care. $8,000 per man woman and child in this country. 26,000 people die every year because they have no health insurance. Yet when 7 people die because their Takata air bags blow out to hard, and it kills them, Congress spends days trying to draft legislation to see that this will never happen again. What about the 26,000 uninsured that die every year, and the millions who are uninsured still, and yet Congress is desperately trying to kill the recent law that has insured 7 million people. The law only stinks because the insurance companies are involved. Yet their representatives in Congress demanded it be that way.

As the people of the United States grow older the need for more and more healthcare providers will grow exponentially. The need by 2025 is an impossible task to accomplish without thousands of NP and PA positions occurring. NP salaries going above $100,000 yearly. Even RN salaries are averaging $67,000 a year. I am so pleased to see so may colleagues speak of NP's with clear and concise praise of their attitudes toward staff and patients. I feel driven to be that to my staff and my patients. I know there are always the exception, but thankfully this is not the rule.