Non Sequitir

Great info but readers please be aware that VANEEP is not the same as EISP.

VANEEP can be used for any program that falls within its outline. Since CRNA would be a first time licensure for you, I believe it could be used. There are maximum funding and time limits however. For my BSN at my state’s flagship university I am maxed out and will end up paying about $1500 out of pocket. My facility’s info sheet says the time limit is 3 academic years, but the contract I signed is for a 2 year limit. The VA CRNA school in Texas actually belongs to the dept of defense, and you would go to school with military and PHS officers. You would be placed by the VA upon credentialing, though I’m sure they would give you something like a top 3 list for consideration. It’s a hell of a deal to consider, even if living in TX isn’t feasible for you, but for last application cycle the program was not accepting any applications at all. People I am in school with can barely work at all while pursuing a bsn (albeit it is an accelerated 14 month program), so I really doubt you could work any meaningful hours if you went the NNEI route. In fact the school might even have you sign a commitment to not work. Glad to see this thread has gotten some attention!

Forgot to mention: The VANEEP scholarship is maxed out for my degree costs and leaves about 5% of the degree not funded. This means that my out of pocket expenses for the entire program (books included) will be $1,000-$1,500. Given the fact that I will retain my full time salary, and also considering all the other scholarships and grants out there, I will have no problem covering that cost.

I posted about this quite a while ago, but in the meantime missed an application deadline so had to wait an entire year to continue with this. This is my experience with applying to and being accepted for the VA's VANEEP scholarship. What is VANEEP? VANEEP is a Department of Veteran's Affairs scholarship program intended to award employees a full ride scholarship in pursuit of a degree which is required for a first-time credential occupation (e.g., an initial BSN but not an MSN in leadership). The program operates under the auspices of the Employee Incentive Scholarship Program (EISP - VANEEP is just a certain flavor of the EISP). https://www.vacareers.va.gov/Content/Documents/Print/VANEEP_VA_Careers_Page.pdf What are the benefits? VANEEP provides its recipients with a scholarship for the chosen degree; additionally the employee remains employed by their VA facility and retains their full-time status and salary. VANEEP provides the employee's VA facility with a temporary replacement salary to replace the recipient's position while they are in school. What are the requirements? The application itself is lengthy and requires multiple individual documents detailing the sought degree, why the scholarship is deserved, the exact dollar amount the scholarship must cover per fiscal year, the exact number of units, and essentially every single detail about the degree, classes, and finances involved. The documents are cross referenced and must all sync exactly down to the dollar. The applicant must have been employed by the VA in any capacity for one year prior to the application submission. Recipients are required to enter into a legal contract with the federal government with harsh penalties for failing to meet academic criteria. If the contract is broken, the recipient owes back to the government all expenses paid out with interest, multiplied by three. Yes that is correct. Recipients must maintain a certain GPA overall, must not fail any classes, and must maintain regular contact with the facility's scholarship coordinator. Recipients are required to return to their post for work during academic breaks, and during any period of cancelled classes longer than one day. Recipients are required to report sick days to the scholarship coordinator and are required to submit sick leave requests to cover the absence. Recipients are required to maintain their government email communications and TMS modules. Yep, you cannot escape TMS! Recipients must complete their degree within a specified time frame (for my facility: 2 years). Recipients will work for the VA in their new role after graduation and licensure/certification for 3 years. The recipient may work at any VA facility - transfers are allowed but with certain communication and paperwork requirements. The recipient is not allowed to incur any other federal obligations during the three year payback period. What is the timeline? VANEEP application deadlines are twice per year, in March for classes starting after the spring, and in October for classes starting after the fall. The application can be made at any time during the degree path as long as all requirements are met (i.e., you can apply for VANEEP after you've already started the degree). The application's ultimate approval and subsequent funding often does not come through until after classes have started, but conditional approval usually comes through right before classes start. The application cannot be submitted until the applicant has a letter of unconditional acceptance by the school. Here is my experience: I already have a BS in general biology, 3.5 GPA overall. July 2018 - applied for a local university's accelerated 14-month BSN; program starts once per year May 28th. November 2018 - interviewed for a slot in the program. Late January 2019 - Received a conditional letter of acceptance, pending my passing of a pre-req which I was, at the time, enrolled in; began the VANEEP application. - Had to communicate with the school's academic adviser to have her fill out a VANEEP form indicating that my acceptance was unconditional despite that I was still taking a pre-req, so I could submit my VANEEP application. The adviser obliged. - Had to estimate a lot of numbers regarding class dates and tuition costs because the school had not posted the future figures yet. Used past semesters as a guide. March 2019 - submitted the nearly complete VANEEP application to my scholarship coordinator at the VA. The application was missing one thing, a mentor, which was held up because of a computer glitch with the mentor application. The scholarship coordinator accepted the application, the mentor came through right before the coordinator was required to submit the paperwork to the scholarship committee. Early April 2019 - The VANEEP committee convened and pushed my application up the chain of command and was accepted by the facility director. The application was then submitted to national for consideration. Late April 2019 - Received an email from the scholarship coordinator that national conditionally accepted my application, signed the legal contract for funding. The application was only pending a signature from the VA's Undersecretary of Health. This was not a guarantee, but there was no precedent for an applicant being rejected at this point. May 2019 - Went to class orientation. Had my supervisor take me off of the unit schedule starting the weekend before classes start. Still no word on the final approval. Mid May 2019 - Received my first tuition bill of $2,300, no word on final scholarship approval yet. Contacted the school's cashier's office and requested an extension due to my pending scholarship. May 28th - First day of classes. Stopped by work on my lunch break from classes (the university is across the street from my VA), got an email from the coordinator that all approvals were done and that I would receive funding. At this point the coordinator begins communicating directly with the university's billing rep so I never see a bill. Overall, I had to determine whether or not I would still go through with school if I did not get the scholarship; thankfully I got it. I've heard of others claiming that their VA told them that they did not have funding for the program, but this is confusing to me because the funding dollars do not come from individual VA facilities, it comes from a national organization called PG&E. This is with whom you sign the legal contract for funding. The application is loooooong and very detailed. If anything is off, misspelled, or does not perfectly match all other documents, the scholarship coordinator will reject it and tell you to fix what's wrong. It can be daunting if you've never completed an application of this magnitude before. Is it worth it? Without question, yes. All of the work and uncertainty associated with the application process is well worth getting a degree and employment. The payback period is acceptable to me because I would continue to work for the VA whether or not I chose to become an RN. Additionally, I will only use 14 month's worth of the funding, meaning I will have 10 months left over. I will be allowed to use that 10 moths toward a more advanced degree after my payback period, though I will have to remain working. That means I can get a good chunk of a DNP or MSN paid for. The academic requirements are somewhat rigorous, but they are on par with the nursing school's own requirements for passing, so no big deal there. --------------------------- There is a lot of mystery surrounding the application and process of submission, because all of the forms are on the VA's sharepoint intranet site which is not accessible from the public internet, and because VANEEP scholarship coordinators are not easily reachable and don't always have the answers your looking for. Luckily my coordinator is on top of things. If you have any questions please post or pm me, I'll do my best to check back here.

It would be prudent to speak with this person vis a vis before throwing in the towel via email. If they are absolutely unwilling to accommodate your school schedule then that is unreasonable, and no future employer, if they even ever knew that you had quit from this position before starting the first shift, would certainly be empathetic.

Good grief, all this talk about searching for people on google...convicts are all registered on city and/or state law enforcement websites, and yes the information may be pertinent if, as aforementioned, the floor also sees adolescents. If this or a similar situation is the case, then it would be prudent to make security aware of this fact. The person has an ankle bracelet on, are staff supposed to pretend it's not there? That's not wise. SW/case managers may very well want to be aware. Those posting that it should just be ignored are not considering how this information could affect care tertiary to medical treatment. If you are in a facility which is restricted to certain beneficiaries (VA, IHS) then you bet the federal police, at the least, will want to be aware of this. However, there is no reason to chart this in medical documentation except to maybe note that the bracelet is present as it is basically part of his person at this point. Medical records are documents which could be subpoenaed in court - let that inform your decisions about matters like this.

I would call the CO SBN back and hopefully get another person, just say you are out of state. Sounds like the person with whom you spoke possibly doesn't know whet they're talking about. Board of Nursing: Advanced Practice Applications and Forms Documents | Department of Regulatory Agencies You might check out that site...I can't access cloud drives from work. If in fact they don't take non-residents, you might try applying to the VA as they are federal and don't have the same applicant requisites. In fact you may find that the VA is more lenient in prescribing authorities it grants to advanced practitioners vs the state in which that VA hospital resides.

It's basically the same difference between the ER and any other floor. The ER stabilizes with the goal of 'how quickly can we get this pt to where they need to go', the floors treat with the aim to fix the problem. That's a gross oversimplification but serves this particular example well. Hospitalist/inpat docs who cover the ER can be absolutely terrible because the frame of reference for treating patients is much different. The ER needs to maintain open beds, the floors need to continue the work that the ER started.

Agree 100%. In my current non-nursing role, I work very closely with providers and nurses in an ER, including when law enforcement is called on scene for patients with active warrants. Some of our nurses - as awesome as they are otherwise - have taken it upon themselves to become a patient advocate and do things like cite HIPPA when officers come in to make a move on the accused. This always ends up impeding the officers an inevitably creates an environment which does not belong in the hospital. It is not a healthcare provider's place to pass judgment - good or bad - on an accused or charged patient.

Thanks for this :)

This is an update to my previous thread, which can be found here. I've been accepted to a competitive BSN program at the local university, now the question is how I pay for all of this...for some context I have a wife, 2 kids, a car payment, mortgage, etc. The mortgage and the youngest kid are both less than a year old, so selling/moving for the sake of accommodating a full-time student lifestyle is not prudent. I currently work full time at a VA medical center and have started the loooonng process of applying for VANEEP. This is a VHA-level scholarship and stipend program which operates under the auspices of the EISP. I.e., the EISP creates the policy framework from which VANEEP derives its authority. VANEEP pays out the following benefits: Full tuition up to $36k Monthly living stipend equal to your full time salary ...in exchange for 36 months pay-back service when the degree is completed. The degree must be in an area which the local VA deems as a high-demand full time position in any field. This of course means that an application can be submitted for any degree program, as long as it falls within the following parameters: Degree must lead to an initial licensure/certification (ie, this program can be used for a BSN but not for a non-clinical MSN) Employee must have been full time for 1 year prior to application, in any position 3 year service payback begins upon licensure/certification - employee must not have incurred any other federal obligation during payback period Other points of interest: VANEEP pays out a maximum dollar amount/college credit amount...after the initial degree is completed, the participant can "use up" the rest of the allotted funds and college credits towards a graduate degree Recipients in the payback period can transfer to other VA facilities The school/program in question must have the appropriate accreditation (I was surprised to find out how many programs in my state are not accredited) Recipients are expected to return to their duty station during scheduled school breaks (spring break, summer break, etc) How the general process works: My facility accepts completed packages twice per year, once in the spring for classes starting the following fall, and once in the fall for classes starting the following spring. The completed application must include: Employee statement on their reasons for pursuing the scholarship as well as what the employee has contributed to the mission of the VA A letter of reference from the employee's current supervisor A credit-by-credit, class-by-class entire degree plan (this is used to formulate the check which the VHA cuts to pay for the recipient's books and tuition) Various other worksheets of such lesser importance that they've already slipped my mind The package is submitted to the local facility's VANEEP coordinator, who works under the Learning Resource Officer. The coordinator ensure completeness then submits the package to a committee which compiles all applications and decides which will be recommended for approval by the facility director. For my facility, since nursing is in such high demand it is usually those packages which are always automatically pushed to the top of the stack. For those of you who have utilized the Post-9/11 GI Bill, my initial impression of VANEEP is that my lifestyle (assuming I'm accepted) will be very similar to how it was during college using the GI Bill. For example, my coordinator tells me it is not unusual for applicants to find out that they have been accepted only a couple of weeks before their program starts. Conversely, with VANEEP I am doing all of the paperwork instead of a VSO or school registrar. I've passed the application deadline for this spring, so I will have to wait until the fall application deadline to submit. I was accepted for a full 4-year BSN program (which I would have completed in 6 semesters given my previous bachelor's degree) but I think that I am going to take some online pre-reqs and switch over to the 15 month accelerated program. Didn't want to do pre-reqs but I'll save a lot of time, plus that means in the meantime before I am accepted to the accelerated program I can apply to a higher position which means I will be paid more while in the program yet still have enough time to develop good rapport with a new supervisor for that needed rec letter. Current or past VANEEP or EISP participants are most welcome to submit any wisdom you have.

Word. Thank you for the input.

My intention with the op was to list the reasons why I chose to, as the title says, quit the pa school rat race. I mean no offense to PAs, students, applicants, or hopefuls. I just found that it is not the path for me. I don't see PAs fading out either, but with PA residencies becoming more commonplace, it may be in the future that the PA career path is less flexible than what we see today. Couple this with what I perceive as a relatively weaker lobbying power, and I come up with a reason to seek nursing instead. In my experience, I have found that MDs tend to have no preference over which advanced practitioner they work with, and that the jobs posted tend to reflect the personal preferences of upper level administration (ie, the people who won't have to work with the new hire). As a matter of practice, I have seen that PAs tend to get hired into specialty services and NPs tend to be hired into primary care and, increasingly, emergency/acute care. My preferences lean toward the latter, hence my initial interest. In my opinion, while NP programs have tended toward retention by means of "lowering the bar" as it were, PA and MD programs have gone the opposite direction and have focused increasingly on applicant stats. Some newer PA programs (eg Western University) prefer applicants to have no experience at all. Yes, you read that correctly. For pre-meds and pre-PAs, it's all about racking up volunteering hours, medical missions, research, getting your name on published research, and of course GPA/GRE/MCAT. To be honest, I have no intention on spending any amount of time chasing application bullet points just because that's what everyone else is doing to bolster their applications. As an undergrad, I had two once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that would have given me awesome application cred. One was to be a scribe with Dr. Leonard Bailey at Loma Linda University (pioneer of infant heart transplant), and the other was to room with and work for a scientist at Bayer in Germany. Despite both being awesome opportunities, I passed on both because my heart wasn't in it. I have no passion for research and I have no desire to be a scribe (had plenty of that in the military). The other day, a new volunteer came through the ER, and the first words out of the senior MD's mouth was "and what is he wanting out of this?" That sums it up quite succinctly for me, and it's not a rat race in which I care to run. The AMA has utterly failed to appropriately address the growing physician shortages and gaps in care, instead supporting the efforts of schools to seize on the opportunity of growing numbers of applicants to raise tuition exorbitantly and discourage med students from pursuing things like rural primary care because it pays beans and rice compared to specialties like cardio, ortho, derm, etc. There are other factors as well, but the AMA is complicit in this problem. As a result, society has put PAs and NPs in the gap, and I've chosen to embark on the NP route. I completely comprehend the argument against this, that it's a shame someone like me would choose the path of least resistance - I held the same opinion until I actually started working in healthcare for a living and found that paradigm to be somewhat elitist and contrived. I mean to convey no offense by that, I only say it to illustrate my own thought process. Regardless, I respect your position and appreciate your honest feedback. I will neither confirm nor deny this, and welcome humorous commentary regarding it.

I appreciate your feedback and advice, many thanks. Thank you, and best of luck to you as well.

Wow, you all are incredibly supportive. I thank all of you for your humorous and encouraging responses. If this board is reflection of the profession itself, then I really look forward to my pending admission decision with the local state U. Should hear something within the next two weeks. I here you. At a certain point for me, the ends do not justify the means. I've come from a background where the odds are stacked against me to quite a degree - first gen college student, born on a reservation to parents who currently qualify for welfare, served in Iraq as a medic in a unit who threatened to kill the person I replaced, was a very troubled youth, etc etc. Instead of quitting when I was initially rejected for military service I persisted. I persisted through college in the top 10% of my class, marriage at a time and place where about 65% of marriages end in divorce within 10 years, and continue to persist in the face of people who deny my heritage as a registered tribal member because my skin isn't dark enough. However, persisting through to med/pa school isn't worth it. I've got stuff going on in my life that I enjoy and am not willing to give up. I'm producing an album, building a microbrewery with my dad, I'm a cyclist 5 days a week, and most importantly I'm raising my two boys. I just can't give any of that up, especially the latter. I honestly expected more feedback like this. The problem, in my opinion, is that the applicant pools are soooo saturated that med and pa schools can pick anyone they want, which naturally leads to a culture of application inflation like chasing bullet points and GPA instead of real hands on medical or life experience. For medical school, the residency bottleneck has helped create the physician shortage which was recently exacerbated by the ACA. That's their problem, and not something I am willing to wade into, especially considering MD salaries relative to their admin burdens are decreasing...what breaks this for me is the fact that in order to get to that underpaid place in life you have to sacrifice 10+ years. That's just not worth it. That's just not what I actually want to do. Society's solution to this problem has been the creation and expansion of non-physician practitioners...at this point, if you are over 30ish and have a family, then why wouldn't you pursue the NP/PA route?