For those of you who have say 5+ years experience as a NP what is your opinion on our profession now? Has it changed from when you were planning to become a NP?
As I've mentioned here many times before I am concerned about the future of our profession and at times embarrassed to be identified as a NP. When I decided to become a NP, not everyone and their 20yo baby sister was becoming one, and the few I knew from work were mature, professional and competent. My biggest gripes were their lack of polish, frumpy attire and affinity for excessive hand holding but now I long for the days when those were my complaints. The new trend of minimal if any admission standards as well as lack of RN experience makes me think our outcomes will tank. Regardless of one's philosophy on the admission requirements or experience prior to our short track to prescribing education if for no other reason than the sheer number of new graduates as anticipated in upcoming years there is cause for concern.
What I am seeing based on the postings here is a total lack of maturity and professionalism from more than a few of the newbies. I have seen multiple that come across imo as histrionic, narcissistic with glaringly poor writing quality and I'm not referring to text slang. My real-life experience as I previously posted, and if I recall correctly got cursed at and possibly called a hater? which made me "lol", is that institutions in my area are taking notice of the ill prepared new NP graduates and either shying away from hiring them or placing them in subservient roles. The pay rates in my specialty range from $90,000 to $185, 000 per year with no specification based on years of experience simply because so many have no clue how to manage their business and frankly while I think I'm an above average NP I doubt I'm worth $90,000+ a year more than some of my colleagues.
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.
All it would take to fix it would be a little stricter admissions criteria, a one semester biochem/cellbio class, a little more patho/anatomy, a bit harder board exam and a one year residency with family practice residents, psych residents, or whatever your specialty is. I mean if you take out all the fluff classes you wouldnt be adding on much time really plus us NPs would be better prepared and taken more seriously as a whole.
Plus they should/could get paid in residency!
BON would never do that though since it would prove that they are bad at managing graduate nursing education
I mean who in there right mind WOULD NOT want a one year residency taught by FP directors doing the same stuff as the residents with a paycheck to go with it?
Im looking forward to residency, even though it will be like 80 hour weeks of hurt.
All it would take to fix it would be a little stricter admissions criteria, a one semester biochem/cellbio class, a little more patho/anatomy, a bit harder board exam and a one year residency with family practice residents, psych residents, or whatever your specialty is. I mean if you take out all the fluff classes you wouldnt be adding on much time really plus us NPs would be better prepared and taken more seriously as a whole.
Plus they should/could get paid in residency!
BON would never do that though since it would prove that they are bad at managing graduate nursing education
I mean who in there right mind WOULD NOT want a one year residency taught by FP directors doing the same stuff as the residents with a paycheck to go with it?
Im looking forward to residency, even though it will be like 80 hour weeks of hurt.
Agree wholeheartedly! The schools would still make the same money even if they tightened the admission criteria because as with undergrad eventually even the less than stellar applicants would be able to pass advanced patho after their 5th try, lol. For the students it wouldn't take significantly more time if they dropped the "Advanced Nursing Holistic Care Across the Lifespan" baloney courses and all I would ask is to include extra pharmacology to that list. That we are handed a prescription pad with only 4-6 pharm credits is unimaginable and again not someone I'd let touch my child unless at Urgent Care if one of my colleagues isn't available to write a quick script and we went in knowing exactly which antibiotic I wanted.
All it would take to fix it would be a little stricter admissions criteria, a one semester biochem/cellbio class, a little more patho/anatomy, a bit harder board exam and a one year residency with family practice residents, psych residents, or whatever your specialty is. I mean if you take out all the fluff classes you wouldnt be adding on much time really plus us NPs would be b
Plus they should/could get paid in residency!
BON would never do that though since it would prove that they are bad at managing graduate nursing education
I mean who in there right mind WOULD NOT want a one year residency taught by FP directors doing the same stuff as the residents with a paycheck to go with it?
Im looking forward to residency, even though it will be like 80 hour weeks of hurt.
There are currently paid residency programs for NPs if they are interested. Unfortunately, family practice residency programs for MDs have enough trouble finding supervising MDs for their residents and providing enough patient scenarios to ensure their competence.
Ideal NP master curriculum and no nothing you did in undergrad would be comparable.
BSN
Min cumulative GPA, min science GPA
1000 hours of RN experience as an understood intro to healthcare environment
GRE
Summer: anatomy, prosected
Fall: cell bio, genetics, biochem, physiology
Spring: patho, micro, immunology, neuroscience
Summer: pharm, diagnostics, physical examination,
Fall and Spring: combinations of 4-6 week rotations in outpatient family medicine, adult inpatient medicine, community pediatrics, emergency med, psych. Remainder of time in chosen specialty doing suitable rotations, e.g. cards, pulm, CC, nephro, ID, neuro, family, psych, Peds, surg, gyn, OB
Graduate.
Licensed generically, no scope/practice restriction. Passing of test required for next step.
12 month residency in chosen field with comprehensive exam.
Board certification in whatever your chosen specialty valid for x years requiring retest.
I was just wondering if the program that you guys attended had any of the criteria that was suggested? Also do you feel that your skills are subpar because of the lack of stricter admission process and residency? One last thing, did school fully prepare you for life as an FNP? I am a NP student with 5 plus years nursing experience and I was a newbie nurse just like everyone else and learned on the fly as a GN. I am aware that the NP role is vastly different but will new NP's not be given some sort of training period?
I was just wondering if the program that you guys attended had any of the criteria that was suggested? Also do you feel that your skills are subpar because of the lack of stricter admission process and residency? One last thing, did school fully prepare you for life as an FNP? I am a NP student with 5 plus years nursing experience and I was a newbie nurse just like everyone else and learned on the fly as a GN. I am aware that the NP role is vastly different but will new NP's not be given some sort of training period?
Do not be discouraged or scared. The continued supervision you receive depends on your employer. The good employer recognizes the need for mentoring you and will have a very collaborative atmospher in the office, even with other physicians. Be careful if they only seem to want a body. You will be left on your own to make as many errors as you can in a day. Look into a residency program. They are there. You are not a physician, nor should you be expected to be one. Learn as much as you can, go to NP conferences. Sign up for the procedure intensives. Don't be scared. If Johnny intern can come out of med school and be trained so can you - for your role.
700 clinical hours just isnt enough. 2k would be reasonable at minimum. People might frown at the idea but it would help nurse practitioners out in many ways
1. employers would not shy away from new grads as much
2. newbies would feel more comfortable
3. patients would get better care by new nurse practitioners
So who really loses out with more clinical hours? The downsides could be more tuition fees though but heck i mean if all these schools dont even find preceptors for their students whats that part matter..... *which is shady anyway*
It would also keep people out who dont really want to do the job or at least somewhat hinder them from making the decision to pursue the degree
700 clinical hours just isnt enough. 2k would be reasonable at minimum. People might frown at the idea but it would help nurse practitioners out in many ways
1. employers would not shy away from new grads as much
2. newbies would feel more comfortable
3. patients would get better care by new nurse practitioners
So who really loses out with more clinical hours? The downsides could be more tuition fees though but heck i mean if all these schools dont even find preceptors for their students whats that part matter..... *which is shady anyway*
It would also keep people out who dont really want to do the job or at least somewhat hinder them from making the decision to pursue the degree
I feel very heavily that schools should assign preveptors. It is absolutely ludicrous to find your own trainer who isn't a university affiliate.
I had to find four of them. One mediocre, one who did the job, one terrible, one awesome. I hold a grudge against the university for requiring this.
We should come up with a curriculum thats better than the current standard (if there even is one) and submit to the board or nursing. They would probably laugh and hit delete though.
The one you posted (psychguy) either in this topic or another would work great.
In most cases NP degree shouldnt even really be fully regulated by the BON. It should require at least a little bit of input from medical schools in regards to the curriculum since it provides prescribing rights. Only problem though would be they would probably bat back on independent practice if they had any sort of a grip on NP education.
the BON has to know its doing patients a great disservice allowing these programs to stay afloat.
Most other career level of training seem to fall in line with the level of responsibility in health related fields and the length/difficulty of training yet with 1-3 years of full/part time education NPs have more authority and risk than any other health profession besides CRNA and certain physician specialties. (one could say dentistry but its pretty hard to kill somebody when working on their mouth, anesthesia is the most dangerous part, and not including maxilofacial surgery and the procedures they do).
Guess we will have to wait for the lawsuits to start pouring in until action is taken.
If the educated lay public knew the current state of graduate nursing education there would be outrage, and I think its starting to leak through finally.
Maybe we should all start malpractice law firms, I bet they are sitting in the corner laughing like doctor evil waiting for the right time to strike
Most other career level of training seem to fall in line with the level of responsibility in health related fields and the length/difficulty of training yet with 1-3 years of full/part time education NPs have more authority and risk than any other health profession besides CRNA and certain physician specialties. (one could say dentistry but its pretty hard to kill somebody when working on their mouth, anesthesia is the most dangerous part, and not including maxilofacial surgery and the procedures they do).
Agree and yes dentists, who I'm not a fan of and question whether I'm coming out alive most visits, other MD specialties and CRNAs have rigorous admission process and previous experience requirements. Why not other NP specialties? At least I think CRNAs are still particular unless they have also started admitting anyone who can pay the tuition and fog up a mirror held directly under their nose.
I feel very heavily that schools should assign preveptors. It is absolutely ludicrous to find your own trainer who isn't a university affiliate.
I had to find four of them. One mediocre, one who did the job, one terrible, one awesome. I hold a grudge against the university for requiring this.
Do you really want preceptors picked by these universities who are admitting anyone who can pay tuition? Not me again I went to a well respected brick and mortar university and yet the quality of their preceptors was not great and most were former students who just graduated. We agree to disagree about the value of having experience in the specialty but because of my years of psych experience I had the cream of the crop to ask to be my preceptors and can not imagine trying to navigate this without their guidance and expertise. I have seen so many times that students come out prescribing like their preceptors. We all tend to have a style and favorite meds which is frightening in the case of lousy prescribers working as preceptors who mold more lousy prescribers. Working on the acute unit I see other prescribers patients all the time and and many medication regimens are ridiculous many are borderline malpractice imo and that is both MD and NP.
Buyer beware, BSN
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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?