Experienced NPs

While I haven't notched five years of experience on my prescription writing pen, I have five with nursedom combined.

So my qualms are with the schools primarily. If they taught adequately, experience, competence, and "independence" would quickly become moot issues.

Second, my eye rolls largely happen with nurses wanting to become FNPs because of perception that it's somehow preparation to do everything.

For what FNPs get, I honestly think ALL NPs should get PLUs specialty training in their chose field whether it be more family , medicine (adult), peds, psych, gyn, or heck even derm, allergy, neuro, EM, etc.

PAs and physicians, regardless of specialty, are trained as generalists. Their license is generic. Residency is what yields their specialty and fellowship for a subspecialty.

Third, with all of nursing, the complete lack of consensus on how all nurses will be licensed and utilized drives me absolute nuts.

Now, finally, at the moment at least I'm doing exactly what I had in mind when I envisioned my NP career. Surprisingly, I started in that capacity and am so limited in that the only place I have to go is down, lol.

Havent been posting cuz its finals week but damn it jules stuck a hook in my mouth and unfortunately pissing off scrubs is the only pair of clippers i got.

1. Jules and Psychguy are pretty much always right on this forum. So listen to them if you dont want to suck.

2. I can compare med school to NP school so unless you have experienced both then listen.

3. Gross anatomy sucks

But anyway....

I found NP school to be way too easy. The required work to get by (at a well respected BM school) was completely subpar for what we do in the real world. Reading about a diagnosis once is not enough to handle many of them so even if you read a whole text on primary care front to back you still dont know it all.

700 clinical hours is laughable. And I cant stand the nurse practitioners that come out thinking they know it all. I had one of the ER docs I work with, first words he said to me, "I cant stand all these nurse practitioners that come in here thinking they know everything after 2 years of school compared to my 4 years of med school, 4 years of residency, and what not." You know what I told him. I told him his damn straight right. Because he is. And hes getting more right as the days go on.

So if you are one of these new grad NPs, or an NP in school, or one of the DNP degree huggers, listen up, you wont be fully prepared for practice when you graduate and do not think you know it all. Your education, no matter how much time you put in, or how difficult you find it, is not enough. Some people find basic algebra to be hard, doesnt mean it is.

What you can do to prevent this is go to at least a decent school, learn outside the classroom, and learn on the job. its that simple. Pick up medical texts and read your ass off your first year or two, then you might be competent.

If you want to suck go to some for profit online garbage school and do the minimal work required so you can either, 1. not get hired, or 2. get laughed at on your first job.

While there are great NP providers out there, they are the ones who do the work required of the JOB not the fluffy schooling they receive. Med school may be overkill by a bit, but when somebody's life is in your hands who would you rather have calling the shots for you and your family. yes, there are crappy docs out there too purely in it for the money, but at least med school is a finer filter in regards to getting the scrubs out that should be wiping butt instead of practicing medicine. (FMGs not so much unfortunately, I have seen tons of awful FMGs)

So if you want to be a good NP understand what it takes, if not, then just do the minimal work required for whatever you are doing.

And dont get me started on the DNP, which does not help the problem, its pretty much worthless for clinical practice.

Everybody wants to do what a doctor does but nobody wants to go to med school....

to all those experienced NPs out there that do a great job though. your top of the line since you took the time to learn what you needed without forced motivation via "school"

I have been a nurse for 16 years. I have an MSN, I am not an NP, and I teach FT. I still work in acute care.

I would not say it in a group of nurse friends, but I am extremely cautious with seeing an NP. I know far too many that were barely competent as nurses and I don't trust them. I have some friend NPs I would trust because I know their background as nurses. At a Minute Clinic or the like, really there is no choice, but let's be honest a lot of experienced nurses could do that job without a graduate education.

I think salaries will decrease over time because there are just too many schools pumping out NPs. I have former students that are in NP programs now and it is frightening. They were poor students, mediocre nurses, and the idea they would be prescribing in three years scares me to death.

I have often tossed around the idea of going back for a post-master's certificate. For now, I am not doing it. I am not convinced I would be happier as an NP. While my NP friends make more money than me (but not by a lot) they also work twice the hours.

It is a shame what we have done to graduate education in nursing. I feel like, for the most part, undergraduate education is good. Or at least in my experience it is. I am not saying it is perfect, but I feel like for the most part we produce safe graduates that are ready for entry level practice. Why do we lose that at the graduate level? Open book tests? Finding your own clinical? Would medicine ever do that to itself? No, absolutely not. Graduate nursing programs are raking in the money for universities because they are costing very little to run. Everything is online with professors taking huge numbers of students, no cost for clinical sites or clinical instruction....

So much focus on theory and research and so little on patho, pharm, and actual disease process. At least at one time it required nursing experience, but now that is gone too. How you can be an advanced practice nurse if you didn't have any practice to ADVANCE?

Nurses are exhausted from the bedside and the treatment of nurses. They want a way out. And the majority of nurses are not on a forum such as this and have no idea that the education is sub-par or are in denial of it.

I have a high schooler that is interested in NP and I am trying to push him towards PA.

It's interesting when I see academics wanting to enter advanced practice. I'm in advanced practice and would love to get in bed, if you will, with academia. I'd make 45% of what I make now, judging by the state salary schedule as an assistant professor, but I want to lecture in my free time and have a next generation career. I don't want to do RN clinical groups. That's for the birds.

yeah academia isnt big bucks at most places. i got offered a 65k a year cush job at my old school for an np lab coordinator thing. the docs make about 150k at their cush job teaching stuff. usually the ones that work either already made their fortune and just want to relax and pass on the knowledge (like psychguy said)

Neither is awful for a 35 hour workweek and zero stress though really

Academia has its own stress, it's different stress, but really there are no stress free jobs. It's about what you are willing to deal with it and what fits your personality. Some people go into teaching thinking it will be one thing and it is quite another, I think that may be one reason you see people wanting to make the switch. It was never for them. And the other is money. Even those that love it, can not always make it work financially.

In my perfect fantasy world, ever nurse would get the opportunity to spend a year as FT faculty. Seeing it from the other side is eye-opening.

Wow! I'm ready to pass out from all this honesty coming from practitioners that not even once used the words "passion", "dream" or "Crimean War." All of which have become prerequisite buzz words for admission to NP school in place of "experience."

Now if we could only get "tramaRUs" to fall in line there would be a quorum.

Is it me or is happiness just overrated or what?