PMHNP and JD

RiskManager · Nov 10, 2015

It will probably not contribute at all to your job prospects if you are seeking clinical work providing patient care. It might contribute to your job prospects if you are seeking work as a junior associate in a healthcare lawfirm, such as the plaintiff or defense side of malpractice or healthcare regulatory work such as licensure defense. Such firms typically want to see at least a few years providing patient care first. However, depending on what area of the country you would be looking to practice in, the job prospects for healthcare legal work may not be that great. I retain and supervise defense counsel in my medmal lawsuits and have frequent contact with my colleagues across the country doing the same work. All of us agree that the volume of legal work is trending downward and there are a ton of new lawyers out there looking for work, and having a healthcare credential might help but it is not a guarantee.

Other job possibilities, after a few years of both clinical and legal practice, would be doing risk or liability claims management for a healthcare system or malpractice insurance company. Most risk and claim managers have neither a legal or healthcare credential, so you could be seen as pricing yourself out of that job market since the credentials are not essential for the job function.

In my experience, most healthcare providers who go the legal route do so because after a few years of healthcare practice, decide they want to leave the bedside or they have discovered that hands-on patient care is not really for them. Think about what your long-term goals are, and will the combined credentials truly help you to reach them.