Something interesting I've noticed is that with undergraduate education although many justify the huge tuition they have paid for their uber expensive big name teaching hospital affiliated university BSN is it doesn't really make that much of a difference. I have done quite well with my community college start and have worked a major medical centers in the Baltimore/DC area as an undergraduate ADN and BSN.
However with NP education the reputation of the school does seem to matter. Where I work unless there is a compelling reason they quietly ignore resumes from three of the big name, "As Seen on TV", for profit schools. I work with one excellent NP who won't precept students from certain schools due to bad experiences with totally unprepared students.
Is that what others are finding? Does our NP pedigree matter?
np thinks to self- hmmm i remember writing a paper on this medicine, i think its for umm blood pressure
np to patient- its for blood pressure
patient- want are some side effects i can expect?
np- let me look that up too
This is pretty common due to the poor education of many nps. But then again we do provide high quality care according to the aanp and aanc, who also accredit schools with open book tests.
I guess they think the oversimplified board exam lasting 2 hours, can test the entire range of things we will see in a primary care setting.
Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, Cardiac/Renal, Ortho,FNP.
The reputation of an NP school matters? To whom? I seriously doubt it does profession wide. All that matters is a license to practice. Some programs probably are better but who would know? That's why you pass a national certification test to equate everyone's base level of understanding. Beyond that you can get a great NP from a mediocre school or a bad NP from a great school. I've never had anyone acknowledge my school and it's seriously old, pretty good school with high pass rates, etc. I don't think an employer cares. To a Doc, anywhere you've gone is NOT going to impress them b/c they are unfamiliar with what you do/don't know, however, you're prior experience as an RN might. I think that matters more is what experience did you get as an RN in the field.
The reputation of an NP school matters? To whom? I seriously doubt it does profession wide. All that matters is a license to practice. Some programs probably are better but who would know? That's why you pass a national certification test to equate everyone's base level of understanding. Beyond that you can get a great NP from a mediocre school or a bad NP from a great school. I've never had anyone acknowledge my school and it's seriously old, pretty good school with high pass rates, etc. I don't think an employer cares. To a Doc, anywhere you've gone is NOT going to impress them b/c they are unfamiliar with what you do/don't know, however, you're prior experience as an RN might. I think that matters more is what experience did you get as an RN in the field.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see some difference with program quality and employment opportunities nationwide. In a competitive market, NP students from quality schools get better clinical placements, they have better networking contacts, and they often have a locally established legacy of placing quality students. As an anecdotal example, the school I graduated from for the past 5-years has had 100% employment in advanced practice at the 6 month mark.
Most employers that have had experience hiring NPs in the past have at least a general idea of which local programs are quality and which are not.
How long have you been working? No one has ever asked where you went to school?
Most docs could care less about the rn experience. Ones i worked for previously did care about the school, and had a few on a no-hire list due to previously bad experiences. Nurse experience helps in some ways but there is no way that one can learn a majority of a provider role from being a nurse, no matter how much some "experienced nurses" tout that it does.
Great nurse practitioners can come from all programs, but usually the easier to get into programs will (on average) not provide as good as a provider if you take a large number and average out their success (which would be hard to do). Part of this may be due to the schooling, but the other part is usually the less motivated take the path of least resistance, which in turn perpetuates through the program and further into his or her career, making the problem worse..., and the stellar providers will have enjoyed the challenge of going to a more selective program and compete harder to be the top of his or her class.
Patients deserve better than a "i passed boards nothing else matters" type of provider.
sauce
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patient- what does this medicine do
np- one sec let me look it up
np thinks to self- hmmm i remember writing a paper on this medicine, i think its for umm blood pressure
np to patient- its for blood pressure
patient- want are some side effects i can expect?
np- let me look that up too
This is pretty common due to the poor education of many nps. But then again we do provide high quality care according to the aanp and aanc, who also accredit schools with open book tests.
I guess they think the oversimplified board exam lasting 2 hours, can test the entire range of things we will see in a primary care setting.
Supreme Fail.