I got accepted into an Online Family Nurse practitoner program. I am still debating if this is something i want to do or not. I am being convinced not to do this because with my current job as a Med/Surg hospital, with 6 years of experience in acute care Float, I make $120,000. Working only 3 days a week, 12 hour shifts, and my job is done. I am reading reviews of FNPs making 80-90,000 every year, and i want the education, but i also do not want to spend 60,000 on school to get a future FNP job that is decreased in pay, with twice the responsibility. Does anyone else come across this issue?
I also hear that i cannot work in ER and inpatient with FNP as well. Am i limited with my job choices? If i continue with this, i want similar pay to what i make now.. I know i cannot do floor nursing forever but i want to at least get this done and out of the way so i have it in the future. I know everyone will say you cannot put a price on education, etc, but i really need some advice on what i can do. I like working in the hospital and being able to multitask and do all of the things the floor nurses do. What if i become an FNP and want to work back on the floor again. I will need to regain all my skills. Maybe i can do FNP on the side? and work part time as an RN? If anyone has any advice on whether or not to continue with this or not, please let me know. I really do enjoy the 3 days of work and 4 day vacation every week. In the future, I just dont want to regret not doing the school thing if i say no to it now. Any and all advice and comments accepted!!!
Have you considered other advanced roles other than FNP? There are other roles that would get you out of the staff nurse position, but keep you on the hospital pay hierarchy, thus avoiding the big salary drop while still getting you away from the physicial stress of the staff nurse role. Or are you committed to the FNP outpatient role?
I am thinking of roles such as CNS, CNL, Acute Care Practitioner, etc. or Staff Development Specialist. Such roles are usually physically easier on the body (desirable as you age), build on your skills as a staff nurse, and pay at least as much as a staff nurse and usually pays more than staff nurse roles.
^This!
Not my choice to make, but I wouldn't do the FNP if I were in the OP's situation. A year, or even six months ago, I would have said something different. But things are changing out there.
All of the things you said are good reasons why I personally have zero desire to advance my education. I have heard this numerous times. For me I also dont have a desire to have "more autonomy". I work in ICU/ rapid response team and I really like my job. I feel like I deal with a lot of critical situations that keep my brain stimulated enough and im ok with the fact that im not the doctor or NP. I dont want to be. Ive been a nurse 11 years and im 33 now so im at the point where my salaray is quite comfortable and likely comparable to many nurse practitioners.
Oh and I get to self schedule for the most part. I think most hospitals are doing this. I hope.
I only have to work 3 days a week if I want (in my area that woudld put me in the salary rand of $80-90k/year. If I work overtime, and I usually pick up 1 a week, this year I might push 120k. Oh and I STILL have 3 days off a week even with that overtime.
I am able to save my vacation time up because I can schedule my shifts around my plans a lot of the time unless im going away. Even then I can take 2 weeks off and only use 36 hrs of PTO.
So do I want to become a NP and give that up? nope.
But if you really are interested in advancing your education there still other streams you can go like getting your masters, and becoming clinical nurse specialists, nurse educators, that kind of thing where you can get into education, but you can still just work as a nurse if you so choose and would have the same portability of your career. in our hospital our Clinical nurse specialists- you have to have a masters, they get paid at least a couple dollars an hour more.
For my I dont live to work. I have a good career that enables me to have a good and flexible lifestyle.
Theres a cardiac PA that I work with, he assists our cardiac surgeons and round with him on the patients etc, he loves his job, but when he actually breaks down how many hours hes actually putting in based on his salary, because its a salary, not hourly, he said he barely makes minimum wage. If he was a nurse and worked those hours based on an hourly wage hes be rolling in the cash.
So do I want to become a NP and give that up? nope.
Context...perspective... Not everyone's situation is the same. Becoming an NP doesn't necessarily mean that one has to give anything up. If the NP is smart, he/she can use his/her education to secure better and better-paying opportunities than those that exist at the RN level in many instances. The mistake that many novice NPs make in their desperation to find work is that they either forget to negotiate for what they want or don't know how, and this is crucial. Instead, they take whatever is offered to them. And, even experienced NPs sometimes pigeonhole themselves into bad employment situations where they are giving way too much to the physicians and receiving way too little in compensation in return.
An NP can negotiate all kinds of deals and schedules, and we have a whole lot more power with this than we realize because as providers we are contributing to the revenue stream of whatever facility we are working in--unlike our RN peers, whose services are accounted for as an expenditure in the bottom line. And, opting to take a low-paying job is also a choice. I was recently offered two different positions: one paying $160,000 the other paying $10,000 more than that. If I went 1099 I could have gotten more. But of course, when you go that route you don't get benefits. These gigs were 4 days per week one week then 3 days per week the next week. I could choose to work 7 straight days and then have the next 7 straight off or mix and match it up any way I wanted.And I would certainly ask for productivity incentives as an add-on. I've read posts on here from NPs who say they earn more. What I wish, really, is that instead of these money-making NP conferences that are all about out there there was a social gathering network of NPs to talk about these types of issues so that we could all get on the same page to collectively raise the profession up and stop accepting low-paying jobs and unpalatable working situations. There should be no rationalization at all for why an NP should be making less than or close to the same pay that an RN is making.
One of the options that I have as an NP that I could never have as an RN is to start my own business as a provider, and that is the direction I'm heading in for 2017 because I've long known that no doctor is ever going to pay me as much as I could earn as an independent provider. I have the knowledge and experience to make a success of it. I also know and acknowledge what I don't know. And I have been working on a network of specialists to whom I will be referring people who need specialist care. My idea is far from being unique. There are NPs out there already doing this. More of us should be doing it.
Oxygenforeverybody
68 Posts
Nurse making 120k a year
! Holy smokes, I figured making that much would be what NP make? I guess I was wrong.