Looking for NP to help with my interview.

I'm an adult health CNS who is employed as an advanced Practice Nurse.

1. I was an LPN for 2 years, an RN for 12 years and I've been an APN for almost 3 years so 17 years total. My education is: LPN certificate, ADN, BSN, MSN, post-MSN for the adult health CNS and I'm going back to school in the fall to pick up another post-MSN for pediatric CNS.

2. LPN in long term care, RN in long term care (1 year), ICU (1 year), ER (10 years), nephrology APN almost 3 years and I work a part time ER job for the past three months.

3. You need to have enough experience to know what direction you want to go. If I had to do it over, I would have done the BSN first. However, since my husband was in the military and we moved every 2 years, that was not possible. When I decided to go back to school, I wished I had had a clearer focus: I would have done the FNP instead of this piecemeal trail.

4. Professionalism is a neat by-word for today's nursing courses - lol. To me, its simply treating others as you would want to be treated. For myself, as an APN, it means reading journals at home, going to conferences to keep up to date, listening to my patients and taking good care of them.

5. The most important skill you can take from nursing school is how to prioritize care and do a good assessment. Its knowing who is sick, who is getting ready to circle the drain and who is actively dying and how to respond. Memorizing medications, doing care plans is all busy work in my opinion. With only the sickest patients admitted to the hospital, knowing who is sick and who can wait is the best skill.

Good luck.

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