First off, a little background. My ultimate goal is to be a PMHNP. I'm currently an RN working on an inpatient psych unit. I love psychopharmacology, analyzing why my patients are prescribed certain meds, evaluating the effectiveness, chatting with my patients and educating them on their medications.
My question is, would it be more beneficial to do a FNP program and then a PMHNP post-masters certificate? I've found a FNP program (MSN) at Delta State University that can be completed in two years, 1020 clinical hours, and costs about $17K total. From the reviews I've read and from looking over the curriculum, it seems like a quality program. I could work as a NP for about a year, and then do the PMHNP post-masters program. Frontier University offers a PMHNP certificate that includes 540 clinical hours, 30 credits, and costs $17,600. There is also the option at Frontier to continue after graduating into a three semester DNP that costs $10K total, with an additional 360 clinical hours (which can be completed in psych).
This whole process would take about 4 years, and would possibly cost $35K (MSN) to $45K (DNP), I'd be certified as both a FNP and PMHNP.
Or would it be better to just go straight for PMHNP? While I can see the benefit of being certified in both, I assume that I would need to have a certain amount of practice hours as FNP to maintain certification. Also, that route might be unnecessarily complicated. My problem is that all of the PMHNP programs that I've found cost between $65K to 100K for a DNP. The few I found that were MSN and cheaper were not offered and/or accepted in my state
Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!
TL;DR: FNP then Post-Masters in Psych, or straight for PMHNP? Pros, Cons?
I recently got accepted into UofA MSN to DNP, adding certification of PMHNP for Fall 2018. Any pointers that you can give me? Preceptors? Classes? ongoing work? Anything really that can help me. Thank you in advance!
fsegovia21
18 Posts
I recently got accepted into UofA MSN to DNP, adding certification of PMHNP for Fall 2018. Any pointers that you can give me? Preceptors? Classes? ongoing work? Anything really that can help me. Thank you in advance!