Is anybody else tired of the nurse practitioner craze?

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Jules A, MSN

8,864 Posts

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Respectfully, I couldn't disagree with you more. I feel NP are like any other profession in healthcare, they have a role to play and are valuable in the niche they fill. My experience has been quite the opposite of yours. I do agree that it seems to be moving towards being oversaturated.

Your experience as? Prospective NP student? Current NP student? or practicing NP?

SDStudent1

52 Posts

Jules A......I am a nurse who works with several NPs, I have seen an NP for medical problems and just finished my first year of an NP program. Why do you ask?

Jules A, MSN

8,864 Posts

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Jules A......I am a nurse who works with several NPs, I have seen an NP for medical problems and just finished my first year of an NP program. Why do you ask?

Just curious, although I wasn't sure who your post was responding to your optimism sounded in keeping with a NP student.

SDStudent1

52 Posts

Understood, I am not trying to be over optimistic about the profession. Many improvements need to be made, especially in education and quality variations of NP programs. There should be less fluff and more hard science courses (like PA programs). I guess I was just trying to make the point that NPs have a role to play in the healthcare system. Just like MDs, Nurses, Physical therapists and Nurse assistants. I will be sure to come back and update this post when I lose that optimism in the future LOL : )

Goldenfox

303 Posts

Oh, where to begin? Yours is a terrible attitude to have as a new nurse. Not every nurse is the same, even at the RN level. Knowledge, experience, and personal touch are a big factor in the care that any nurse delivers, and when you are a brand new nurse you don't yet even know that much of what you need to know is not taught in nursing school. Ok, we get it. You have a deep-rooted hatred for nurse practitioners, but tearing down one's professional colleagues is not a good way to endear them to oneself in any profession. We have way too much of that in nursing already. I have been in this profession for a long time and I have seen that there are good nurse practitioners, and there are bad ones. There are good physicians and bad ones, too but I don't compare myself to physicians because I am not a physician. Smart nurse practitioners don't do that because they don't need to. We practice according to what state laws allow us to do, and I am here to tell you that you are wrong. Many patients very much appreciate the NPs and PAs who take care of them. What you are describing as a 'nurse practitioner craze' and 'an identity crisis' is really just a myopic perception. Many of us actually care about our patients and we are very good at what we do. One thing I have observed about physicians over all these years is that they support one another, and their boards of medicine support them too. I have observed exactly the opposite of this in nursing. Throughout my nursing career I have lost count of how many RNs like you I have met...who never miss an opportunity to ridicule and denegrate other nurses. And some of our boards of nursing do their best to suppress us too. Sad!

The way you now disrespect nurse practioners is exactly the same way that the ICU nurses I precepted with many years ago as a critical care RN trainee looked down on med surg and telemetry nurses. I have never forgotten the arrogance, jealously, and hatred that I saw coming from those nurses every day or how they made me feel for every day of the three months that I was in training with them. Their behavior was contemptible and I swore that I would NEVER become like them. I burned out as a telemetry nurse after my first few years at the bedside. It was a good learning experience for me but it was also mostly running up and down. I wanted to learn critical care so I went to the CVICU. I worked there for a while and decided that I wanted to continue my education beyond that. Looking back, I have never looked down on any area of nursing or any nurse because despite my post grad letters I still proudly consider myself to be---a nurse.

The saying used to be that more experienced nurses eat the younger ones alive. Now even the brand new nurses such as yourself are eating other nurses alive.

We are professionals. We should act the part and hold ourselves to higher standards. We should be upselling our profession and each other instead of tearing one another down. We can and should be doing a whole lot better than this. You should feel great shame for disparaging fellow nurses! One day you just may decide that you want to learn more than med-surg nursing. Perhaps then you will begin to appreciate that moving on to higher levels of function and learning is not a bad thing.

I wish you good luck in your nursing career. I get the feeling that you are going to need a lot of it.

Ruby Vee, BSN

17 Articles; 14,030 Posts

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Oh, where to begin? Yours is a terrible attitude to have as a new nurse. Not every nurse is the same, even at the RN level. Knowledge, experience, and personal touch are a big factor in the care that any nurse delivers, and when you are a brand new nurse you don't yet even know that much of what you need to know is not taught in nursing school. Ok, we get it. You have a deep-rooted hatred for nurse practitioners, but tearing down one's professional colleagues is not a good way to endear them to oneself in any profession. We have way too much of that in nursing already. I have been in this profession for a long time and I have seen that there are good nurse practitioners, and there are bad ones. There are good physicians and bad ones, too but I don't compare myself to physicians because I am not a physician. Smart nurse practitioners don't do that because they don't need to. We practice according to what state laws allow us to do, and I am here to tell you that you are wrong. Many patients very much appreciate the NPs and PAs who take care of them. What you are describing as a 'nurse practitioner craze' and 'an identity crisis' is really just a myopic perception. Many of us actually care about our patients and we are very good at what we do. One thing I have observed about physicians over all these years is that they support one another, and their boards of medicine support them too. I have observed exactly the opposite of this in nursing. Throughout my nursing career I have lost count of how many RNs like you I have met...who never miss an opportunity to ridicule and denegrate other nurses. And some of our boards of nursing do their best to suppress us too. Sad!

The way you now disrespect nurse practioners is exactly the same way that the ICU nurses I precepted with many years ago as a critical care RN trainee looked down on med surg and telemetry nurses. I have never forgotten the arrogance, jealously, and hatred that I saw coming from those nurses every day or how they made me feel for every day of the three months that I was in training with them. Their behavior was contemptible and I swore that I would NEVER become like them. I burned out as a telemetry nurse after my first few years at the bedside. It was a good learning experience for me but it was also mostly running up and down. I wanted to learn critical care so I went to the CVICU. I worked there for a while and decided that I wanted to continue my education beyond that. Looking back, I have never looked down on any area of nursing or any nurse because despite my post grad letters I still proudly consider myself to be---a nurse.

The saying used to be that more experienced nurses eat the younger ones alive. Now even the brand new nurses such as yourself are eating other nurses alive.

We are professionals. We should act the part and hold ourselves to higher standards. We should be upselling our profession and each other instead of tearing one another down. We can and should be doing a whole lot better than this. You should feel great shame for disparaging fellow nurses! One day you just may decide that you want to learn more than med-surg nursing. Perhaps then you will begin to appreciate that moving on to higher levels of function and learning is not a bad thing.

I wish you good luck in your nursing career. I get the feeling that you are going to need a lot of it.

You say you have never looked down on any area of nursing, yet the contempt in your words is palpable. "Arrogance, jealousy and hatred"? Why is it that so many who have difficulty getting along with their coworkers are convinced that it's because the coworkers are jealous? I honestly didn't think anyone past middle school actually believed that malarky.

Acting like a professional and holding ourselves to higher standards ought to include respecting all areas of nursing -- including those bedside nurses who often save the butts of brand new NPs . . . just like we've saved the butts of brand new MDs.

Goldenfox

303 Posts

You say you have never looked down on any area of nursing, yet the contempt in your words is palpable. "Arrogance, jealousy and hatred"? Why is it that so many who have difficulty getting along with their coworkers are convinced that it's because the coworkers are jealous? I honestly didn't think anyone past middle school actually believed that malarky.

Acting like a professional and holding ourselves to higher standards ought to include respecting all areas of nursing -- including those bedside nurses who often save the butts of brand new NPs . . . just like we've saved the butts of brand new MDs.

My comment wasn't intended to invoke drama. It was an annecdotal and subjective recollection of my personsal experiences as a new nurse in the CVICU years ago. You assumed that I had difficulty getting along. You assumed incorrectly because that was not the case at all. I got along with them just fine, I just never forgot the way they made me feel due to their constant berating of floor nurses. Don't be so on the ready to attack others. Even those of us who barely made it past middle school have our stories to tell.

Jeez, the irony of all this is so lost on some!

Specializes in Critical Care, Peri-Op, Aesthetics.

I agree with the people talking about NP's (and PA's) filling a void, especially in the primary care arena.

Even in the acute/critical care setting.. I work nights in CVICU and in one of the hospitals where I worked, we had no attending at night. It was just you and your midlevel. And they were great when poop hit the fan and it went down on the unit, especially with multiple patients coding. I recall a night where we had to crack a chest open at the bedside and wait for the MDs to arrive while we held it down.

Don't ever underestimate your midlevel!

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