Does everybody want to be a NP?

Nurses General Nursing

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Or... should I say does every NP think all nurses want to be NPs?! In my experience, that's how they act. Even when I'm being seen as a patient, the NP is hurried, and seriously has an air like "yeah, bet you wish you were an NP". Even the nurses who are just in NP SCHOOL say things like 'yeah, I'm going to get my REAL education so that I can be a REAL professional/get a REAL job.' So rude!

Is being an NP really that much better than say having an MBA? Or being a PT? Or a registered dietician? I don't even think we should compare NP with floor nurse, because a typical floor nurse will not have an advanced degree. Am I wrong?

Oh, and all nurses and nurse assistants (every level) should stop using the term "mid-level"!

Why? Is it because that would make us "low-levels"? What's in it for me? lol

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I went in to HIM - the only patient contact I have is with their chart. :) Zero desire to be an NP. :)

Please, do tell how you transitioned from RN to HIM... (!) ;)

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Specializes in 15 years in ICU, 22 years in PACU.

Can't say I have had the best experience with NP's. My wife chose to see the NP at my doctor's medical practice and was very disappointed that the NP seemed disorganized and flighty. Didn't do a very thorough history to get at the problem. Rushed to prescribe pain medication rather than try other modalities.

My interaction with a Neuro NP at work made me question her intelligence as she consistently tried to provide detailed incentive spirometer instructions to nearly unconscious patients. And tried to tell me, the PACU nurse, how to administer anti-emetics. I suppose she knew her Neuro stuff but lacked common sense.

We also had an NP student who used (a lot of) company time and bedside computer to do her school work. She had a fit and stopped talking to the charge nurse who turned off the computer at the end of the work day and apparently lost some unsaved school project. She graduated this summer, passed her boards then left. Two weeks of open shifts remain without coverage. Bridges burnt and smoldering. Tacky, selfish and unprofessional. Yeah, all of those.

Certainly this forum has a lot of talk about going on to become an NP. Like anyone who doesn't is a stooge. I really think it's mostly talk to feed an insecure ego.

I'm not sure where the advanced practice aspect works with the direct entry model. "Advanced" implies you have the basics down pretty well and obtaining a "Master's" degree leads one to believe you have mastered something.

I'm sure there are advanced practice nurses more than worthy of the name but as a group and especially the new ones I vote NO CONFIDENCE.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
Why? Is it because that would make us "low-levels"? What's in it for me? lol

There are a number of reasons, including:

1. Not continuing to support the physician agenda.

2. Not continuing to degrade nursing.

3. Not sounding uninformed.

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There are a number of reasons, including:

1. Not continuing to support the physician agenda.

2. Not continuing to degrade nursing.

3. Not sounding uninformed.

PAs are called mid-levels also; I don't think it has anything to do with degrading nursing

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Specializes in Behavioral Health.
The barrier for entry is low and it needs to change; the non-quality programs need to go away. The way to make that happen is for current NPs to refuse to precept students from non-quality programs and this has already started (hopefully). I do find it very curious to see people taking about increasing the barrier to entry for NP programs that also argue to continue diploma and associate entry into RN-nursing.

I'd also like to see the exam be harder. I feel like a strenuous exam would put pressure on low quality schools to improve or close, although it would take a few years to see the results. As it is, there are online programs that boast ANCC pass rates in the high nineties. That's a pretty low barrier in itself.

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There are a number of reasons, including:

1. Not continuing to support the physician agenda.

2. Not continuing to degrade nursing.

The NPs I have met care very little about nurses. They appear to care about as much if not less than physicians. Going off the understanding that all (most?) NPs were once bedside care nurses, they do very little to advance nursing as a whole. Basically, they will, can, and do differentiate from and step on us "low-level" nurses just to advance themselves. Very selfish and uninterested in helping "our" cause as nurses as a whole.

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I haven't had that experience, Cola. I did work in a very close knit hospital. Most of the NPs I worked with were career nurses taking the next step. They were a constant on the floors since it was a teaching hospital.

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There are a number of reasons, including:

1. Not continuing to support the physician agenda.

2. Not continuing to degrade nursing.

3. Not sounding uninformed.

By the way listing "nots" does nothing to describe the benefit to me. Please explain one positive reason I should avoid calling an NP a "mid-level" which is a shortened version of "mid-level healthcare provider".

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Specializes in Outpatient/Clinic, ClinDoc.
Please, do tell how you transitioned from RN to HIM... (!) ;)

My hospital hires into clinical documentation and trains, so that's where I went. Minimum requirements 5 yrs inpatient + BSN, but the more coding/HIM experience you have the better. :)

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
I'd also like to see the exam be harder. I feel like a strenuous exam would put pressure on low quality schools to improve or close, although it would take a few years to see the results. As it is, there are online programs that boast ANCC pass rates in the high nineties. That's a pretty low barrier in itself.

The national pass rate for the board exams is in the mid-80s depending on the exam, slightly less but similar to the NCLEX. Compared to the USMLE steps in the mid-upper 90s.

Sure the exam could be harder but that's not fixing the real problem, IMHO.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
By the way listing "nots" does nothing to describe the benefit to me. Please explain one positive reason I should avoid calling an NP a "mid-level" which is a shortened version of "mid-level healthcare provider".

There is nothing "mid-level" about (most) NP practice. NPs have comparable if not better outcomes than physicians. They are held to the same quality measures as physicians. They practice collaboratively but independently in most settings. It's simply an archaic term from when NPs were first being given limited prescriptive authority; things have changed drastically since that time, though the AMA still argues for it because it cements in the public's mind that nurses (RNs and NPs) are less than them.

You can take whatever benefit you want from it, but every time you are understaffed and underpaid at work, just think about the hospital paying a physician an extra nurse's salary because they buy into the fact they are higher level than you.

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