NP vs PA...

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Specializes in Telemetry, ICU, Psych.

For those of you in graduate nursing programs: What exactly is the difference between an NP and a PA. Philosophies/medication privilages/pay? What draws many of you to work as a NP instead of PA? Any regrets about not becoming a PA? Is there any competition between the two fields? :smiley_ab Thanks in advance.

CrazyPremed

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I believe the difference is in the background. NPs are nurses. PAs are not nurses, but have some other degree such as biology. I do not know the difference in the responsibilities, although I suppose I should.

~Lauren

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Specializes in Educator.

there are lots of prior threads that cover this- if you do a search you will come up with reams of material!!

enjoy

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

Yeah - this is pretty much a very dead horse and always gets into people flaming about it! LOL

I would definately check out the other threads though!

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For those of you in graduate nursing programs: What exactly is the difference between an NP and a PA. Philosophies/medication privilages/pay? What draws many of you to work as a NP instead of PA? Any regrets about not becoming a PA? Is there any competition between the two fields? :smiley_ab Thanks in advance.

CrazyPremed

One of my nursing professors once mentioned a good point about PA's. It's a "dead end" profession in that you have to always work under a doctor and the scope of practice is pretty limited. PA's can never really be independent practitioners.

NP's have prescriptive authority and can work independently without the back-up of a physician.

This is not meant to be critical of PA's at all. It's just a comparison.

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As stated above, please just do a search on this forum, and you will find everything that you are looking for..............

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Specializes in RN Psychiatry.
As stated above, please just do a search on this forum, and you will find everything that you are looking for..............

Just playing devils advocate, sometimes I find it hard to get the specific info I want from doing a search... the search brings up tons of things yes, but then most of them don't meet my needs and I have to go through so many! Sometimes the web has so much info that you can't get your info!!!! lol

take care,

Danielle

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

LOL! Yes this is true especially when searching for dead horses that have been beaten beyond beaten...

That's the main reason why sometimes you are better off searching the archives - if you are careful with your serach terms and able to write strings, that will help limit your returns to what you are actually looking for.

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