Is being an NP worth it?

[daisychains11, RN]

Hi,

Thanks in advance for reading this.

I became a nurse 4 years ago. When I went to nursing school my original goal was to become a nurse practitioner, likely family nurse practitioner. It is still something that interests me a lot but I have been dissuaded by a few people who have said that it is nor worth it for the amount of money you get for the amount of work that you put in. To be fair one of the people who said this is a medical doctor. But because of this, I have not applied to NP programs. But I still think I would find it rewarding, and it would still pay more than what I am making now as a staff nurse. I looked into psych NP also because they are supposed to make the most, but that seems like a very intense job with an even larger burden of dealing with many people's psychiatric situations including complex ones. Any current NPs in any speciality or ones who were in the past or nurses with knowledge/thoughts on this? Thanks!

[Ogamu1966]

Only if that is what you want. Not worth my time. 

[Julia Liou, RN]

Hi daisychains11,

It's great that you're reaching out to the AllNurses community to ask these questions. If you need some help with deciding what NP specialty to go into, feel free to look at our AllNurses article on NP Programs:

Nurse Practitioner Program (allnurses.com)

I think in the end of the day it depends on what you value right. People go into the NP Program tend to want to stay in the clinical fields versus pursue a MSN degree, which allows you to be more in a leadership role. I do find in the health care industry, furthering your education wouldn't hurt you, and it's better to do it while you're in a good financial position, or having more obligations. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck! 

[barcode120x, RN, NP]

Definitely shouldn't be going for NP to make more money. Same reason why no one should become a nurse for the money. There is potential to make money as an NP than an RN, but it depends on your specialty, experience, and if you're lucky with a good employer. There's a post somewhere on the forum where someone did the math which showed years of experience as a typical bedside RN far exceeded an NP's pay. If you are purely looking at pay, I think psych NP is at the top of the ladder. Aesthetics and plastics can pay quite well too if you're able to get into that. Contract gigs can pay very well such as annual wellness exams, wound care, and medical examiners. It just all depends on what you want to do and also your location. You could simply do an Indeed search of NP positions around your area to get a feel of what the pay is like.

[Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP]

You should reconcile your ideal of what a NP does with the reality of what NP's on the field experience every day and the best way to do that is to ask to shadow as many NP's in the role you are interested in. You mentioned interest in FNP...that is a track geared to primary care across age groups but in reality, not all FNP's go into that role as some actually work in specialized fields. That alone can affect your day to day role, you patient load, your liability, and your pay, etc. One person's advice or perspective may be different than the next but in order to be better informed, try to get as many input from different people as you can.

I am trained as an Adult ACNP and have only worked in a hospital setting starting as an RN in 1992 and an NP in 2004. I feel that I made a good decision to be an NP and have been happy with my career trajectory and will likely retire having finished an entire career in this role. In my experience, the more years an NP gets under their belt, the more leverage they get as far as commanding a higher salary or finding that job with balanced pros and cons. It is satisfying for me to assess, work-up, diagnose, and treat patients...something that is not possible as an RN. You also get better as you age in terms of handling the patient load and drowning out the BS. There are healthcare politics, insurance quirks, US-healthcare realities that will annoy you but in the end your focus is on patient care.