How does working as an R.N. beforehand help in being a nurse practitioner?

Dogen · Jun 30, 2016

Interesting. I wonder if this is regional. I work in a small OP MH clinic where we have Drs, CRNPs and PA-Cs who all have caseloads in the clinic and a few of the PA-Cs round at a local inpt psych unit on the weekends.

Nationally, only about 1% of PAs report working in psychiatry compared to a little over 4% of NPs. Additionally in 2014 there were about 101,000 PAs compared to about 222,000 NPs. So, that's about 1,000 PAs and 9,300 NPs who worked predominantly in psychiatry in 2014.

Mia415 · Jul 10, 2016

You absolutely must work as an RN before you can become an Advanced Practice Nurse such as an NP. You must have that experience and understanding for the nursing approach that NPs utilize. It sounds like what you are looking for is called a Physicians Assistant or maybe a PhD in psychology or social work.

With respect, I do feel like your initial post may have offended many nurses on this site by your ignorant comment of what RNs do and how it is not valuable to the role of a nurse practitioner in a specialized setting. I assure you it is valuable. You cannot learn to care for one aspect of the patient until you understand the whole patients health. The role of nursing is so wide and so varied and we all had to pay our dues and make it through school. I knew from age 14 that I wanted to work with mothers and babies and never work with the elderly or the dying. I definitely had to learn how to care for the elderly and I am such a better nurse and a better human being from what I learned in nursing school. But then I graduated and got my dream job working in a low stress non hospital environment and am working with moms and babies in an independent setting. It's easy to reach your goals of one day working with the population you love - but you need a well rounded education in order to work in health care. I hope you learn more about nurses really do and not just in an inpatient hospital setting. But if you're still sure you don't want to be a nurse, then definitely don't become an NP. Good luck.

Psychcns · Jul 10, 2016

OP- your question was about direct entry NP programs and how important is it to be an RN first. There are many posts in the NP section of all.nurses about the two roles being very different and yes, you can be a successful psych NP without working as a RN. Part of the direct entry programs includes obtaining a RN license and I think in some programs working as an RN. Everything is accelerated but it can be done. I have a BA in psychology and went back to get my BSN. Worked about 10 years and then I got my MSN. Worked in management and education for a few years years and for the past 7 years or so working as a psych APRN as a locum tenens. All my background experience has been helpful. The work is intense mentally and emotionally and very interesting and satisfying. And psychology and psychiatry are different. Maybe check out curriculums and schools, and see what is doable for you. And spend as little money as you can on credits and degrees.

Bumex, DNP, NP · Jul 10, 2016

Is that seriously what you think we do? If so you have absolutely no idea what nursing is all about and frankly I find your viewpoint to be insulting.

Agreed as well. Maybe you should think of something else other than RN to NP.

Bumex, DNP, NP · Jul 10, 2016

Also to add on, most PA and medical schools want you to have experience in health care. To get into PA school almost, if not all, require you to work as a CNA, MA, EMT, etc in order to gain experience anyways. If you think RN experience will be a waste of your time, then I have no idea how you would ever make it through working as the people who actually are the assistants to the RNs.

Mhsrnbsn · Jul 11, 2016

I will forgive you for your ignorant sounding post...

There is NO WAY you will be an effective nurse practitioner if you never work as a nurse. Sure myself and many other nurses might agree the "med pass" and "butt wiping" is the least glamorous of the tasks we are privileged to do, but while these are a part of what we do, it is not the entire picture!

If you work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, sure some of the medical/surgical aspects of hospital nursing may take a backseat to what your focus is... But you'll still be taking care of diabetics, CHF-ers, Hypertension, and it is imperative that you have a sturdy ground with assessment skills set up.

With patients being on psych meds as well as "medical" medications there's huge potential for issues, and it will still be important for you to know how to keep your patient from dying of a low blood sugar while in therapy.

Another thing you learn is communication skills, which will prevent faux-pas such as your original post. You learn how to talk to people, and how to treat people with your HEART as well as your mind. There's a reason why people say nursing is the "heart" of medicine, and why many nurse practitioners are being requested to provide care over physicians.

I honestly don't think being a nurse practitioner is the correct role for you. You can still pursue a career in psychiatric health without "nursing" even being your primary role. And just to give you a heads up... I'm in NP school, and every program I looked into for my education indicated that one of the pre-admittance requirements were 1-2 years of "acute care nursing experience". Now there may be programs that don't require nursing experience, but I certainly didn't see any. And I feel you'd be miserable working those 1-2 years post nursing training by the sounds of your post and it will show in your work.

Good luck in your career path.

elkpark · Jul 11, 2016

I will forgive you for your ignorant sounding post...
There is NO WAY you will be an effective nurse practitioner if you never work as a nurse. Sure myself and many other nurses might agree the "med pass" and "butt wiping" is the least glamorous of the tasks we are privileged to do, but while these are a part of what we do, it is not the entire picture!
If you work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, sure some of the medical/surgical aspects of hospital nursing may take a backseat to what your focus is... But you'll still be taking care of diabetics, CHF-ers, Hypertension, and it is imperative that you have a sturdy ground with assessment skills set up.
With patients being on psych meds as well as "medical" medications there's huge potential for issues, and it will still be important for you to know how to keep your patient from dying of a low blood sugar while in therapy.
Another thing you learn is communication skills, which will prevent faux-pas such as your original post. You learn how to talk to people, and how to treat people with your HEART as well as your mind. There's a reason why people say nursing is the "heart" of medicine, and why many nurse practitioners are being requested to provide care over physicians.
I honestly don't think being a nurse practitioner is the correct role for you. You can still pursue a career in psychiatric health without "nursing" even being your primary role. And just to give you a heads up... I'm in NP school, and every program I looked into for my education indicated that one of the pre-admittance requirements were 1-2 years of "acute care nursing experience". Now there may be programs that don't require nursing experience, but I certainly didn't see any. And I feel you'd be miserable working those 1-2 years post nursing training by the sounds of your post and it will show in your work.
Good luck in your career path.

I'm not particularly a big fan of the direct-entry programs, but there is no disputing the fact that there are large numbers of these programs around the country, that take non-nurses, put them through an accelerated basic nursing program and then a graduate program in an advanced nursing specialty, and there is no evidence I'm aware of that those graduates, as a group, are deficient in practice in any way, or that they are not competent, effective clinicians. Many of these individuals have never worked a single day as an RN (some direct-entry programs do require that the students work part-time as RNs during the graduate part of the program, after they've gotten licensed as RNs, some don't). The direct entry programs have been around for at least 30 years. If you "didn't see any" when you were looking at graduate programs, you must have not looked v. closely. They are v. popular, as you can see from looking casually around this site. The graduate program I attended (as a traditional, experienced-RN student) had a direct-entry track, and the direct-entry students were not required to work as RNs and made it v. clear that they had no intention of ever doing so; they were there to become advanced practice nurses. They were highly employable at graduation; the school and its graduates have a great reputation. I'm not wild about the idea of defending direct-entry programs, but, at the same time, I hate to just let these kinds of factually incorrect statements stand without saying something.