FNP student: urgent care or ED experience

[Alexag63]

Hi everyone! I am an RN in my second semester of NP school. I will be graduating august 2025. My goal is to right away start working in an urgent care. I have experience on a telemetry unit, as well as general/trauma/cardiothoracic OR. I am needing to move to a new area and unfortunately get a new job. I have three job offers. The first is full time urgent care (lower pay, BUT they know I'm in school and fully support nurses going for FNP), the second two are ED (day/evening) and ICU (split night and day). They both have higher pay and better assessment skills to learn. 
 

Has anyone else ever been in this position? I am getting married in two weeks and don't think that night shifts would be a great way to start out a marriage. Thanks for any advice! 

[barcode120x, RN, NP]

Tough decision, but if your FNP end goal is work in urgent care, I think that RN urgent care position would suit you best despite the lower pay. That initial urgent care experience will go long ways and that urgent care may even become your networking place for a future NP position. A normal sleep/day schedule from that urgent care job may also suit your education/schooling needs better than a wonky weekly schedule of a 12 hour ER position. The ER experience will also benefit your urgent care experience though. Weigh the pros and cons of each, but it would seem like urgent care would be a better choice. Pay is important, but I wouldn't necessarily always pick a job just because it pays more, especially since it's only temporary.

[ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP]

Urgent care NP here.

Take the ED spot. You will gather SO much information from the ED, a variety of conditions and have an idea of how a critical patient who needs to be referred to ED presents.

ICU would not be as helpful.