Nurse Practitioner Specialties and subspecialties

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Hello,

I am not sure if this is in the right section but I have started looking into the Nurse Practitioner specialties and was wondering exactly what is considered a specialty and sub-specialty. I'm looking into family health, women's health, and orthopedics. I am in the process of finishing my bachelors in psychology and applying to accelerated nursing programs in new york.

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is this in the wrong section?

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.

This isn't my area of expertise, but you could be a women's health nurse practitioner. I'm not sure if there's an ortho specialty (not to my knowledge), but a DO (osteopath) would be good to work with as a WHNP is you want to has some emphasis in that area.

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thank you :)

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

thread moved for best response

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

Officially, these are the NP specialties that will be in existence in 2015 as agreed upon by national NP certification boards through the APRN Consensus Model:

  • Family Nurse Practitioner (ANCC, AANP)
  • Adult and Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner (ANCC, AANP)
  • Adult and Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Pracititoner (ANCC, AACN)
  • Pediatric Nurse Practitioner - Primary Care (ANCC, PNCB)
  • Pediatric Nurse Practitioner - Acute Care (PNCB)
  • Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (NCC)
  • Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NCC)
  • Family Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (ANCC)

The above are official titles of NP programs the colleges and universities will be offering and there will be a national certification or two that corresponds to each of those specialties.

The Model has provisions for schools to add a subspecialty to an existing official NP track as they wish such as Family Nurse Practitioner with Orthopedics subspecialty, Adult and Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner with Cardiology subspecialty, or Adult and Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner with Critical Care and Trauma subspecialty. These must make sure that the subspecialty content do not take the place of the content required for the main specialty.

Some of the subspecialties have a national certification board as well such as:

Note: the underlined blue fonts are links.

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