Jamiediane

oh yay! I'm glad you can gain more knowledge :) i loved the difference of care that was given by the NP vs md in the clinic i was working in, it really inspired me. I do have a question and i hope i don't come off as rude if you believe that what they do day to day mirrors that of a MD why did you choose NP? Was it because you were already a nurse but knew you wanted to further your education or would it have been to much to go back to medical school?

Hey guys! So i just got accepted into a nursing program I'm super excited, i feel old I'm 27 but its ok cause ill either be 33 with a bsn or 33 with nothing :) So i already know in the future i am going to want to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. From my volunteer experience and working as a cna i loved helping the nurses out i love what the nurses do and how they are so personal with the patients which is incredibly important to me but I'm curious about one thing. I never want to be a doctor, i don't like there job duties however i know that doctors go through 36 months of pediatric residency which is all focused on pediatrics and that is why they are very knowledgeable in pediatrics and i know that nurse practitioners who specialize in pediatrics have about a year and a half i heard 4 months but i don't think that is accurate of pediatric focus and so that makes it seem like they are pushing out nurse practitioners with very little knowledge so I'm wondering how many years it took some of you nurse practitioners to feel comfortable in the knowledge or if you never actually got to that place? Once again i don't want to be a doctor i just want to be extremely knowledgable in my area of expertise. thank you guys for any input

So what are you actually saying then? You said I either work hard to do what I want like you are but then you said if you didn't have the support from your family you wouldn't do it which I mentioned earlier I have absolutely no help. I was in the foster system so I don't have a mom or dad to help and I live very very far from my brother and sister thank god so if you could clarify what you are trying to say that would be great

Only because I've heard doctors in my family talk bad about nurse practitioners

Alright so I'm at my wits end going back and forth with this. I love psychology it's my all time favorite subject! So naturally I said oh I wanna be a psychologist which was fine until I realized how much schooling you must complete so I looked into lcsw and masters of psych programs. You don't have many job opportunities with a masters in psych and the income for lcsw is very very low. I have two children I get no help from their dad and I have no family so me going to school for 6 more years after my undergrad living off a stipend is not realistic and healthy for my children. Going to school for my undergrad and then 3 more years in a masters program just to have a very low salary is also not going to work. Someone pointed me in the direction of psychiatric nurse practitioner since I emphasized I like psych so much but my only problem with it and this is going to sound high school is that I won't have a lot of knowledge and I don't want doctors to criticize me because I don't know something. So if any NPs can comment on that I would love it!