PMHNP Program Admission Tips

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Hunter College MSN PMHNP

Stony Brook University MSN PMHNP

Anyone applied here? Anyone has information?

I'm interested in these programs highly. My BSN GPA is low 3. Not much experience in psych nursing but I'm interested in PMHNP to work with psychic population.

Please help.

Thanks.

Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.
Can lack of inpatient psychic nursing experience hinder if I'm going to work at an outpatient clinic? I have talked with psychic patients in my primary care clinic daily with anxiety, ADHD, depression, and more.

Yes, it can. Though if you're mostly interested in psychic patients, Bill Murray will share his.

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.

While I generally agree that nursing is very different than nurse practitionering, I think that is more particular to fnping or acnping. Psych is a bit of a different beast where the interaction and bs checking are a bit more relevant. No, being the best ass wiper in the country won't help much with being a psych NP. Medical knowledge could be a great help, since there are a ton of co-morbidities. Is a psych NP with 10 years of psych and 2 years as a psych NP equal to one who has 5 years of med surg and 5 years as a psych NP? Probably not. But they're probably better (if their personality is not crud and they went to a decent psych NP program) than someone with 18 years of med surg and 2 years as a psych NP.

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.
Although there are the rare exceptions I'd say yes ABSOLUTELY. The first hand experience of becoming familiar with the types of meds, doses, patient presentations so you can actually diagnose a patient accurately that you will get from working inpatient is invaluable imo. The cross overs between SUD, BiPAD, Cluster B as one example are often rather subtle and yet crucial for someone who is about to hand out medications. Unfortunately the schools don't seem to feel that way, mmmmm, wonder if finances have anything to do with that?

I don't have cluster b. I don't have any STDs!

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
While I agree that more experience can be beneficial I'm don't believe that it should be mandatory or that is necessarily produces superior results. Consider for example the many studies that show NP's provide equivalent or even superior care to MD's in primary care. No one can argue, but that most MD's have substantially greater experience and education in terms of residency hours ect. However, this doesn't always translate to superior or even equivalent results in terms of outcomes. .

First I'm not a fan of most of these "nursing research studies" (my air quotes) because all quality of research aside they were done prior to the recent trend to let anyone and their poodle into a NP program. In the past programs required nursing experience and were actually particular with their admissions so i guarantee 10 years down the road as the present debacle is allowed to continue the results will be far different. Also regarding these "outcomes" in most cases they followed primary care where NPs do not take or keep the most complicated cases they are turfed off to MDs. There are so many of the primary care presentations that are self limiting. Tell me how you can be 100% sure Sally actually had an ear infection vs didn't have one vs the antibiotics worked vs even if she had one it resolved on its own untreated vs with the wrong antibiotic. When I did rotations in the peds office for my FNP there were numerous kids who came in a day after going to the ED or Urgent care with ear complaints and wowza with only 1 dose of an antibiotic all s/s of ear infection were miraculously gone! Meh I'm not a fan and again even if I took them all the delightful "nursing research" at face value this data is no longer applicable to the quality of new NPs graduating today in my opinion.

Lastly these studies usually include some sort of patient satisfaction rating which is all well and good but anyone who has been around healthcare for 2 seconds knows that the majority of patients have no clue if their provider is competent, and in my experience there are many who are not both NPs and MDs. Yet their dear NP holds their hand, hugs them and spends far too much time focusing on things that are not billable so they are very loyal despite the fact that she doesn't know how to prescribe her way out of a paper bag.

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Specializes in RN, BSN.

How much does the name of the PMHNP program matter later when finding a job? Trying to weigh the cost vs reward. 
 

Ex. Hunter College vs Yale 

Looking to apply for 2021. Thanks! 

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Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
11 hours ago, sej said:

How much does the name of the PMHNP program matter later when finding a job? Trying to weigh the cost vs reward. 
 

Ex. Hunter College vs Yale 

Looking to apply for 2021. Thanks! 

Very little in some areas especially Independent practice states. Probably, quite a bit more in certain especially East Coast states like New York. Still, I had two job offers at around 180K with benefits in upstate New York despite attending a small state school (in Indiana) that offered an online curricula. Still, that was pre covid and perhaps the job market is tighter.  I would probably pay another 5K per year to go to Yale, but I wouldn't pay an extra 20K.  I still feel that the University of Southern Indiana was a great value at around $300.00 per credit hour all fees pretty much included.

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Specializes in RN, BSN.
6 minutes ago, myoglobin said:

Very little in some areas especially Independent practice states. Probably, quite a bit more in certain especially East Coast states like New York. Still, I had two job offers at around 180K with benefits in upstate New York despite attending a small state school (in Indiana) that offered an online curricula. Still, that was pre covid and perhaps the job market is tighter.  I would probably pay another 5K per year to go to Yale, but I wouldn't pay an extra 20K.  I still feel that the University of Southern Indiana was a great value at around $300.00 per credit hour all fees pretty much included.

I called USI previously, but because my residence is NY, I couldn't apply...? What is that rule about? Doesn't everyone take the national boards to become PMHNP certified anyways? 

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Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
1 hour ago, sej said:

I called USI previously, but because my residence is NY, I couldn't apply...? What is that rule about? Doesn't everyone take the national boards to become PMHNP certified anyways? 

So USI is approved in around 40 states, but there are a few states with more burdensome requirements and New York is one of those states. As a graduate you can practice in any state so long as you are board certified without regard to the school that you went to. Thus, you would need go to a school that is licensed in New York if you are going to live there. On the other hand you could live in say Florida or Indiana go to USI or a different school, pass your boards and then move back to New York and become licensed.  Note New York does not have IP, they do have expanded practice after you have worked under a New York psychiatrist for a certain number of hours.  Having said that it would take a great deal for me to work in New York considering that with my current job I get to work from home, am on pace to earn at least 250K seeing patients four days per week (as a first year graduate) and I get to live in a state with no income taxes and a relatively low cost of living. Had I taken the Plattsburg job or one in Albany New York I would have had to live apart from my family, paid the high New York state income taxes of at least eight percent and gone to the office (if they were even open during covid) and I was looking at about $2,200 month for a small apartment (my four bedroom home with a pool in the Orlando area runs about $1,800).  

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Specializes in RN, BSN.
13 minutes ago, myoglobin said:

So USI is approved in around 40 states, but there are a few states with more burdensome requirements and New York is one of those states. As a graduate you can practice in any state so long as you are board certified without regard to the school that you went to. Thus, you would need go to a school that is licensed in New York if you are going to live there. On the other hand you could live in say Florida or Indiana go to USI or a different school, pass your boards and then move back to New York and become licensed.  Note New York does not have IP, they do have expanded practice after you have worked under a New York psychiatrist for a certain number of hours.  Having said that it would take a great deal for me to work in New York considering that with my current job I get to work from home, am on pace to earn at least 250K seeing patients four days per week (as a first year graduate) and I get to live in a state with no income taxes and a relatively low cost of living. Had I taken the Plattsburg job or one in Albany New York I would have had to live apart from my family, paid the high New York state income taxes of at least eight percent and gone to the office (if they were even open during covid) and I was looking at about $2,200 month for a small apartment (my four bedroom home with a pool in the Orlando area runs about $1,800).  

Right, I agree with where you're coming from.

What's with the more burdensome requirements for some states like NY? Kind of insane to do a run around and settle back in NY if I had to, but makes sense to take a new grad job elsewhere if the pace is similar to your 250k...

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Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
33 minutes ago, sej said:

Right, I agree with where you're coming from.

What's with the more burdensome requirements for some states like NY? Kind of insane to do a run around and settle back in NY if I had to, but makes sense to take a new grad job elsewhere if the pace is similar to your 250k...

I believe that the rule emanates from the New York requirement to have "brick and mortar" school(s) in the state (a bit ironic since most colleges are meeting online for the foreseeable future for most classes).  Still, it does increase the cost. I believe that one or more of the NYU state schools might be a good reasonably priced option if you wanted to stay local.  Also, I would go through the US News and World report list until I found a reasonably priced school that is licensed in your state https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-nursing-schools/nurse-practitioner-mental-health-rankings .  Keep in mind that with covid finding preceptors can be the real challenge. You may have to take something akin to my approach of literally writing every Psych NP and Psychiatrist in the state (in my case Florida) a personalized letter and then following up with a phone call (I would have followed with visits had I now found someone with my first batch of 150 letters).  

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Specializes in Psych/Mental Health.
On 10/21/2020 at 3:01 AM, sej said:

How much does the name of the PMHNP program matter later when finding a job? Trying to weigh the cost vs reward. 
 

Ex. Hunter College vs Yale 

Looking to apply for 2021. Thanks! 

For PMHNP jobs, it won't matter at all. Your access to job opportunities and salaries will not differ just because you attended Hunter (instead of Yale). 

The only time when name of the program might be an issue is if it is one of those for-profit 100% online NP programs that accept anyone.

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thanks. anyone else wanna share some advice/comments?

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