Hi all!

[hunnybaby24, BSN, APRN, NP]

I am a new grad and I have a question. What experience is great experience for a FNP? I am in steps to receive an offer from a community emergency center, dealing with patients from peds to geriatrics. I think this would be a great opportunity for that, but the clinic is sometimes slow and I feel bored as a PCA (but I know that is not how I will feel as a new nurse). Do you think I should go more critical (the hospital environment) first or get this ER experience? I'm just trying to see which experiences are most valuable in the years I have before I go and get my nurse practitioners.

Thanks in advance for your input!

HB

[Cardiology EP NP]

It really depends on what type of NP you are interested in working as. I would say if you are interested in doing primary care, then ER would be a good place. If you are interested in a more specialty area such as oncology or cardiology, then I would recommend working in an inpatient unit on either a hemonc or tele step down unit. On the same token, if you want to do women's health, then an OB unit would suffice. It really depends on what your interests are.

[hunnybaby24, BSN, APRN, NP]

Hello,

Are you an adult cardio- Electrophysiology NP? Thats actually where my interests are. I have a personal interest in that because of my previous arrhythmia. I think ER nursing would be neat but I have more of an interest of learning about hearts and electrophysiology. Do you think starting off in an ER setting would be good since I get a wide range of patients? How do you go about specializing that much as an NP? Do you find job opportunities limited since it is so specialized? I saw some programs up in UC-San Franscisco that have a cardiology speciality that seemed pretty interesting.

Thanks for your input.

Tasha

[Cardiology EP NP]

Yes, I am an adult EP NP. Well, ER is always a good setting to work in because you see many different types of patients, but if you are interested in being an EP NP, then I think it would be wise to work in some sort of cardiac unit where you would care for EP patients. A good way to specialize is to do some type of cardiology specialization when you are enrolled in your adult NP. There are some schools that do have this specialization. Then when you do your clinicals you can request to do some clinicals with either an EP doc or NP. But, you will also need some general cardiology background as well. These EP docs also treat patients with HF so it would be good to be familiar with how to care for patients who have cardiac abnormalities in general.

I guess in some ways there opportunities are hard to come by because they are so specialized but the field of EP is becoming more and more popular as more patients are opting for these EP procedures. Enrolling in a program with a cardiology specialty would be of most benefit.

I graduated with my adult NP and with a CNS in cardiovascular disease management. It was extremely helpful. Most of my clinicals were in cardiology. And I also worked on CV stepdown unit where we cared for EP patients post procedure. I got to the know the head doc of the EP dept and that really helped when it came time to interview.

Best of luck to you and let us know how it goes!