Family nurse practitioner vs pediatric nurse practioner

allnurses Guide · Apr 24, 2014

The PNP is more focused, the FNP more rounded.

Employers like the flexibility of FNPs to see patients through into early adulthood in many instances.

Speciality pediatric practices may prefer a more focused education. It is fairly uncommon, at least here, to see job postings that would exclude an FNP for a pediatric position.

TexasNP14 · Apr 25, 2014

I too struggled with this question. I asked lots of people and got many different answers. I spoke to some FNP who work in pediatric specialist office who said to get FNP to broaden your scope of practice and have more jobs available to you. I also spoke to some pediatricians who said they only hire PNP for their office. She said to me would you want someone who learned a little about everything or someone learned alot about pediatrics. So for me it depends on what you want to do. If pediatrics is only where you want to end up, then do what you will be happier doing and make school more enjoyable. If you want to be open to other possibilities later on then do FNP. I ended up choosing PNP and start school in a few weeks. I still have moments where I hope I made the right decision especially when I am browsing sites and there are so many FNP jobs open, but I know Pediatrics is what I want to do. And if I decide later I want to do family, then I will do post-masters.

zmansc, ASN, RN · Apr 25, 2014

I don't know about other job markets, in our two largest provider groups (one private, one a community health center) the NPs and all of the providers really have narrowed their focus to specific patient groups. There are several FNPs, PAs, and MDs who are not specifically pediatricians, but a vast majority of their patients are pediatric. That doesn't mean they don't see adults, but as they established their practice they tended to focus on a specific population or a specialty of some sort. I know one provider who treats Hep C, another that treats only pediatrics in her office and spends the rest of her time in an SNF treating geriatrics. I know one who treats kids and women, but no men! As long as they are keeping busy, the administrations of their practices don't mind how they focus their practice.

As I said, that is just what I've seen here in my very local practice, I don't know if that is unusual or the norm or somewhere in between. And depending on how much you despise/don't like/don't want/would rather not treat adults, would play a big role in deciding which path you take.

I also don't know the specifics of other FNP programs, but in my program they have a set number of pt contacts within a variety of categories: pediatric, adult, men, women, geriatric, prenatal, one legged men with a beard. Ok, I made the last one up, but sometimes it seems like they are getting that specific! lol So in addition to a minimum number of hours, their is a minimum number of contacts within each patient population, but they don't have a maximum number of contacts with that population group. My school is fine with us having more contacts with those we are more interested in. Several of my cohorts have jobs lined up in specialities when they graduate, so they are doing more time in those specialties and will probably be well over the minimum number of hours but short of certain contacts. They are doing this because then they can have sort of a mini residency. Now, if it takes them an extra term, then they will end up spending extra $$ in addition to "working for free", so there are some limitations built into the system to keep them moving along, but my point is you can focus your FNP education on an area of interest if that is the route you choose to go.

Meowmixer · May 3, 2014

I struggled with this decision for awhile as well. I went for PNP and start school this fall. I have absolutely no desire to treat adults. I've worked in the pediatric ICU for awhile and I'm not even a fan of teenagers. It took a lot of thinking and even though there are, in fact, more FNP jobs, I'm willing to move where I need to, to do what I love. I may go back and become a ACPNP as some hospitals/states are now requiring the AC certification to work in hospitals, but it's a simple process to go back to school to obtain a post master's certificate for it.

I even went as far as asking my attendings what they would hire. I was simply asked, why would I hire a FNP if there are plenty of PNP's around that I know are better suited to treat children?

Just think about what would make you truely happy. It's a huge investment and time sink if you're going to be unhappy.