ccw123

I wanted to thank everyone so much for their kind words and their advice. You all really were so helpful to me and I appreciate it. I'm popping back in to give my plan, in case someone else comes after me looking for hope. I've been accepted into an RN inpatient new grad residency program. It was a very hard to decision to step away from the FNP role, especially when I saw others from my program doing it. But I told myself that my job was only to evaluate myself and what I was doing and what I wanted and go from there. One of the moments that stuck out for me was one of the first days as an FNP when I had a patient with acute abdominal pain. I was going to be the only person to assess that patient and as I made up my list of differentials I realized that not only had I not seen any of these diagnoses evaluated or treated in real life (excluding gastroenteritis), but I hadn't SEEN a single one of them in real life. None. There are NPs that can work with this reality and make it through to a being a great provider-- I'm not one of them. I need to know what I know and be able to look my patients in the eye and believe myself when I say that I'm confident I can take care of them. My current goal is to work as an RN for a year or two, hopefully while getting some FNP experience through part time volunteer work or working in some place like a minute clinic-- and then apply to a residency and hope for the best. If I end up staying in the RN role and never making the transition to NP, that's a great career too. My best advice to others is that if you're looking at your NP program and you're going, but I don't think I'm going to be prepared at the end with that level of knowledge and time seeing patients! Trust yourself. Just because it's enough for someone else, doesn't mean that it's going to be enough for you. Thank you again to everyone! I really needed it.

Since the reply shows up at the bottom anyway, I'll answer all the rest here. Thank you to everyone has responded. It's definitely appreciated. -- Jules A, I will definitely do so. I would love to share my experiences and hope it makes some changes. I will also be contacting my school to give them feedback once I figure out who is appropriate to speak to. -- Oldmahubbard, yeah psych would be a whole different ball game and it's very challenging. The happiest graduates I know from my program are psych, but then they have years of non-nursing clinical psychology experience too, so I'd likely need that first. And, haha I've been asking myself that question a lot to figure out if I'm just a failure at this job. I think it's the same combination of the three: clinicals, personality, and job. The clinical experiences of an individual in the program vary widely and with 600ish hours only and no past experience to draw on -- what you get by luck of the draw matters hugely. I don't think I drew well and the gap between my training and the jobs I look at is huge-- 2/3rds of my training was better suited for the retail health level and the 1/3rd that was supposed to be higher acuity had more routine care than I've been able to find anywhere else (as an example, diabetes care, NPs started metformin and did lifestyle education and med-compliance checks -- but any other medications were managed by the doctors on site. So despite seeing a bunch of diabetes that clinical, Ive seen almost no diabetes management that I'd actually need to do) . Personality-- I also think my successful classmates are better at faking it until they make it so they survive in their jobs and learn like crazy and become good providers ...a few of them are also horrifying to me and are going to kill patients probably. And then job--- a rare few get very supportive jobs and I think my first job was on the hard end for outpatient acuity levels and complex issues. But I think being thrown into the deep end (hopefully with lovely colleagues who will answer questions) is the norm. Everyone I know from the program in the FNP is miserable at work, and joke about crying every day, but they're surviving.

Thank you for the kind words! And they are definitely helpful-- I'd eliminated specialty care jobs from what I was considering, but I'll start looking for ones open to new grads.

Hello, any advice would be greatly appreciated because I'm very lost right now. Long story short: I did a career change with a big brand name accelerated family nurse practitioner program (aka get the FNP with no nursing experience). I excelled in school, was very worried about my limited clinical experience (before and during) and the quality of my clinicals, but was reassured I'd be fine. Graduate and got a job as an FNP at a FQHC and things were not fine. It was sadly a disaster from all three fronts -- it was a hard clinic with sick patients, I am not the beat at learning on the fly under pressure and other things about me that could improve, and I honestly believe my training was absurdly and dangerously insufficient for the scope of practice I am now licensed to do-- I'd seen nearly none of it before (I could have cried when I got a patient with the flu or an asthma exacerbation because it was finally something i knew what I was doing and I was capable of handling those cases fine). One month in, I quit before I was fired. I will have great character references from my employers, but a bad review of my clinical skills. I would still love to be an FNP, and I'm so willing to work hard, but I don't know where to go from here. Its been 8 months since I graduated now (took time off for family matters I'd neglected in school and then waiting for licensing because I also moved) and my first job ended in a disaster after a month. My confidence is shot and I am afraid employers will not be willing to take a chance on me (I am applying, but it's only been a couple weeks). I feel trapped because I've already done my training--- but I don't feel trained for my role. 1. What FNP jobs could I apply for that have a more limited scope or more extensive training? I've applied to all the retail health jobs I can find, but no luck yet. Is there a market that is desperate to hire people in retail health? I'm willing to move! (Fellowship/residency programs are sadly not an immediate answer -- they mostly have deadlines that are a year away now and they are very competitive--I was rejected from two before I ever applied to any jobs) 2. What else should I apply for? Should I apply to RN jobs? Which ones? Should I try to get a post-masters in psych to try to find a more limited scope? How do I avoid torching my health care career? 3. Any advice at all is appreciated! P.S. Please don't turn the focus of the discussion to whether nursing programs without RN experience should exist or not. If I had the opportunity, I would not attend my program again, but dwelling on that doesn't help me move forward (and for the record, I also have classmates who are happy with their choice and I'm sure they will be great NPs)