New Grad FNP job hunting

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Hello,

I am a new grad as of December 2015 and I have passed my FNP certification through the AANP. I am in search of a position as an FNP. I have over 16 years of experience as a registered nurse. I worked in pediatrics, med/surg, ICU, CVICU, MICU, NICU, and the emergency room. I have applied for positions ranging from ED, Urgent care, CVS Clinic, Walgreens Clinic, the Little Clinic as well as some hospital based programs. Any suggestions? Do I need to be more patient? I have reached out to several contacts and they seem to think that I am a guaranteed position. While I was in school all of my clinical rotations wanted me when I was finished. However, now that I have graduated and completed my certification they all have no openings at this time. I am eager to start working in my new role. Any suggestions or ideas would be most helpful.

U mad bro?

nursing was a pretty easy and mindless job, and i worked in the (insert)CU. It is not engineering or medicine, even though other nurses will have others think it is on par intellectually wise.

I think it is what you make it.

If you wanted to be an ICU RN that focused on the completion of mindless tasks and following very specific instructions, you could do that. You could also be the RN who takes the opportunity to learn and educate themselves well beyond that level and become an expert clinician in that unit who understands and has insight into the medical model of care being provided. To make such a blanket statement otherwise is a rather foolish assumption.

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Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.
OP I'm so sorry to derail, but is this guy freaking serious?? I certainly hope to make significantly more money when I finish my FNP program next year, but to say that RNs don't have the ability to independently solve a problem and referring to us as "room service attendants" is completely ridiculous and derogatory and makes me wonder if you have ever worked as an RN. Come work a shift with me in the SICU and then let's revisit this topic. Get the * over yourself.

Emergency, critical care, med surg, Correctional health, urgent care. If ever a RN was "autonomous" it was me. Still, I couldn't actually do an meaningful intervention without a doctor's order.

I'm not the one to get over one's self.

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I seen some mindless RN's and a good number of those have gone to be mindless NPs.

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Likewise, I've seen some physicians that fail to meet the "intellectually gifted" category. I'm not sure job titles or the ability to perform "meaningful interventions" infer intelligence. In fact, you could train a monkey to perform meaningful interventions. The degree of understanding behind those interventions is what matters and that doesn't require an advanced practice degree.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Women’s Health.
U mad bro?

nursing was a pretty easy and mindless job, and i worked in the (insert)CU. It is not engineering or medicine, even though other nurses will have others think it is on par intellectually wise.

No, it's not engineering or medicine. It's nursing. I'm wondering why you and PsychGuy are members of a profession that you obviously have no respect for.

You can choose what kind of nurse you want to be. You obviously chose to do the bare minimum as RNs, and I would imagine you do the same now as NPs. That's fine. There are slackers in every profession. However, it's not appropriate to assume that the rest of us mindlessly trudge through our days just because that's what you did.

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I do not believe that psychguy and synaptic are berating the profession. The job is probably just pretty easy for them. Some things are easier for some people than others. I come from a physics/coding back ground.. which I still do in my spare time.. and it makes pretty good side change. I will say that physics/computer science is much more challenging than being a nurse practitioner... the knowledge ceiling (useful knowledge ceiling) is MUCH higher, more focus is required, and a deeper ability to use abstract thought is also required.

in turn, being a nurse practitioner requires much more thought process than an RN. I also found being an RN rather repetitive, somewhat unintellectual, and rather boring. But I Love the social aspect of it.

yeah, if I could go back I would have went to med school, they love physics majors.. but the time investment was too great and I would have had to give up my IC coding contracts. I was able to maintain those through nursing school and my masters.

Anything that requires abstract thought, computation, and application of complex algorithms, rules, and micro-theories, will be ultra-difficult.

I struggled to maintain a good GPA in physics, but I did. This struggle did not present itself in nursing.

This is just my experience though, take it as a grain of salt. I am sure there are very bright nurses out there, but the applicable knowledge ceiling is not very high. I mean technically one would get soo into hemodynamics of the vascular system and be able to calculate out the difference in the turbulent flow and linear flow of each blood vessel in the body and plot it on some excel chart for sh*ts and giggles but I do not believe that would help much on the job. Just an example... of how far one could go into the micro-zone of things.

I do not see why people get so defensive about their profession. I know for me, mine does not define me, so I actually get to relax and never take offence. I feel for those who let their profession define them... have they lost their individualism?>

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Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.
Likewise, I've seen some physicians that fail to meet the "intellectually gifted" category. I'm not sure job titles or the ability to perform "meaningful interventions" infer intelligence. In fact, you could train a monkey to perform meaningful interventions. The degree of understanding behind those interventions is what matters and that doesn't require an advanced practice degree.

I agree wholeheartedly, but why understand if intervention is out of scope for a RN.

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Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.
No, it's not engineering or medicine. It's nursing. I'm wondering why you and PsychGuy are members of a profession that you obviously have no respect for.

You can choose what kind of nurse you want to be. You obviously chose to do the bare minimum as RNs, and I would imagine you do the same now as NPs. That's fine. There are slackers in every profession. However, it's not appropriate to assume that the rest of us mindlessly trudge through our days just because that's what you did.

Mam, I was hired into the Pinnacle of NP positions. I have full autonomy, have managerial authority, see A LOT of patients, and make a lot of money. I got the job because of initiative which brought forth talent.

Being a RN was not remotely what I was led to believe, and truth be told, it was never anything unwanted to spend one iota of time doing. I had a goal, and I achieved it.

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I hope I never have the misfortune to become a patient or a co-worker of this guy. If he ever really worked as an ICU RN he obviously was not doing a good job at all if all he did was to act as a "service attendant unable to independently solve a problem".

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Specializes in FNP.

Wow, totally out of line.

Mike

It's mind boggling that NPs, clinicians with an actual ability to independently solve a problem, make less than hospital room service attendants (RNs). Why NPs allow that to happen is beyond me. Heck, I'd go ride a cubicle or be a bodyguard or something. I can't see the appeal in having the valets making more than the managers.
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Specializes in FNP.

Maybe join your local APRN group. Most of the members (60 attend meetings monthly) at the one I'm in are pretty tight, and offer up job opportunities at each meeting. When I was looking for a position that group produced more potential job offers than any other source.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I guess I can only add that I hope all these NPs/APRNs who so deride the profession are happy.

I've been an APRN for 10 years now and though not gloriously happy with my chosen specialty, its a job, I do it to the best of my ability and help to make a difference.

Some days thats all you can ask for....

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