MentalKlarity

You accepted a week of vacation a year? Wow

It's not your fault, because NP education is failing us. Many people assume "all schools are equal" because we trust the nursing boards to only accredit programs that prepare us to work in clinical practice. That is not the case. The reality is that the "requirements" for accreditation from our boards are a joke, which is how programs like U Phoenix, Walden, and Chamberlain (who together graduate 10s of thousands of NPs per year) are able to accept 100% of applicants, teach using discussion board postings, and let people set up their own clinical. Add into that how pitiful the clinical hours are for NPs (around 500 hours in the program where PA programs have 4x that and MD programs have about 8x that + residency) and you can see they DO NOT prepare most NPs for practice. The only way to be truly prepared as you can be is to: 1. Go to a not for profit program, preferably an in person or "hybrid" program. A for-profit fully online program is a big red flag. 2. Make sure the program sets up your clinical. 3. If you already went to a poor program, fix the issue by going to a residency! Residency programs help NPs transition from school to practice and can "iron out the kinks" in the pitiful holes in NP education for those who went to crappy programs. At this point if you feel underprepared, I highly recommend seeing if you can find a residency program. There are hundreds, they pay a normal salary most of the time, and really function as a "job" with a lot more teaching and handholding until you get the hang of it.

Sorry do you mean 1 week of paid vacation or you can only take 1 week of per year? Because if the latter, I'd run from both of those jobs as that as absolutely not enough time off per year and you will be basically working nonstop. That's not even enough for holidays let alone taking vacations/trips?

Don't take anything at Phoenix. Likely to have some random admin who uses pre canned teaching modules and has you learn pharm by doing discussion board postings. Seen as a For profit diploma mill style school.

Look at Frontier and state schools like Eastern Kentucky. All more reputable than chamberlain. This school is an absolute joke and it's an embarrassment that you'd even consider it. Anyone who goes to these for profit joke schools are a completely embarrassment to the profession and I wouldn't let them treat my worst enemy.

What state are you in? I will tell you good programs to look into. Your previous RN experience means little in making medical decisions, it's a different part of your brain.

If you're basically saying "I don't have enough time right now to fully focus on learning how to be a medical provider so please give me the easy way out" maybe you should not become an NP right now. That's not a dig, but this is about learning to take care of lives. This attitude of "Hey I will take whatever easy program I can find because I'm busy" is why other medical providers laugh at us. NP school isn't supposed to be convenient.

We do exactly the same as the MDs. The MDs are my colleagues and we see the exact same patients, treat exactly the same way, bounce ideas and plans off of each other. I cannot tell the difference between the NPs and MDs at my organization.

LOL no. Going to a program because it's convenient is a major red flag. You're training to be a medical provider. Physicians spend years doing pre-reqs, 4 years doing difficult school in person, and years of 80+ hour week residencies and you have NPs that think they should have equal standing but can't even be bothered to go to a real school? Because taking entrance tests or doing an interview or taking hard classes beyond discussions boards from adjunct professors is so much to ask? People from Walden and other for profits don't deserve to have equal rights to MDs, and they drag down our profession.

100% agree. The number one thing we can do is STOP precepting or hiring for profit students and grads until they get the message and this mess ends.

You're correct, but I think the issue is more there needs to be SOME barrier to NP entry. It's not experience, it's not GRE scores, it's not certain weed-out classes (organic chem), it's not even admissions itself (since Walden/Phoenix, etc take 100% of applicants). We all just wish there was SOMETHING giving some selectivity to our profession.

It's actually not cheap. It cost a lot more than a local legit state NP Program 99% of the time. It's a rip off. It's for uneducated consumers who fall for scams. I wouldn't see an NP who went to Walden or Phoenix because their choice of school tells me all I need to know about their judgement

I mean Walden is literally just pre packaged modules I'm not even sure what students pay for. The professors are adjunct, they find their own sites, the classes are pre packaged discussion board postings, and the degree is embarrassing and a joke. Why would anyone go there

Because the accrediting bodies are likely just a bunch of money hungry greedy admins who see more nurse practitioners as more test money and more money from dues.

Important to add to this the different calculus. For nurses, they are REQUIRED for the hospital to run. They need X nurses for the hospital. You've seen hospital bills? Hospitals that are for profit will pay whatever they need for RNs to keep those numbers flowing. A night in the hospital can cosy $5,000. Times that by 10 patients on a floor you have $50K in one night. Paying 2 nurses $1500 to keep them alive = pennies on the dollar for the profit. For providers, the calculus is different. You only make what you see. A new grad FNP might see 12 new patients in a day. They get maybe $100 per patient from insurance. This is $1200. Account for people who no show or don't pay their bill or insurance scrapes it back, down to $1000. Now add in the facility and other staff. Even giving the NP HALF the profit, thats $400-500 a day. Now down the line when they are experienced and can see 25 patients a day, they may deserve a much higher pay. But as a slow new grad, an NP is not "generating" the money yet to cover their salary + a profit at $200K+. So why do physicians start higher? They did residency, they can swoop in and start with that 20-25 patients day 1. And they get higher insurance reimbursement rates. And can bill for procedures the NP cannot do. The MD did residency for 4-5 years making $50K a year while they learned the ropes. The NP is still coming out ahead making $120K as a new grad doing the same.

Most of us NPs, maybe more than physicians, do listen to our clients and really try. Hence the OP even having the humility to post this asking for help because they do not want to misdiagnose someone or err on the side of caution when it is not warranted. Your post here came across somewhat incendiary, you attacked the education process, made a snide remark about income, and threw out baseless accusations. We are all very sorry for your previous experiences with some medical providers, but please do not use that as a weapon to come demonize an entire profession of people who truly want to help you. Wishing you the best and better care in the future. I truly hope you find someone who does listen to you moving forward.

When everyone and their mother is enrolled at Walden's part-time 100% acceptance rate "become an NP in 18 months" online program, yeah, the salary is going to suck. The profession is being watered down and oversupplied. I will not be surprised if RN salary is consistently higher moving forward.

Fewer providers that are higher quality is safer than an oversupply of incompetent idiots

So embarrassing. All you Walden and Chamberlain jokes are who this article is about. You're ruining our profession with your short cuts.

Some educational reading for the pro-joke school crowd: from a student: from other NPs: The physicians laughing at us:

It's fairly obvious to most people what a joke it is for a school to accept 100% of all applicants. Do you think 100% of people are smart enough to be medical providers? Do you want NO rigor applied to the acceptance process? Literally the act of applying to top schools, getting pre-reqs together, passing standard tests, writing essays - those are the activities that "weed out" those not smart enough to be medical providers. Walden and other for-profits skipped that step because the goal is not to weed ANYONE out because all they want is money. Let's look at some numbers: 2022 Walden NP graduates: 4,248 2022 Vanderbilt NP Graduates: 433 Almost 10x as many graduates. Do you truly think a school with 233 full-time faculty members is providing a "good" education and overseeing clinicals, etc for 4,248 students annually!? This is not a school, it's a money making scheme. It's a joke. They want as many students as possible and offer them pre-packaged "modules" and discussion board posts run by a bunch of adjunct "facilitators" of course instruction. There is no learning, there is no oversight, there is no hands-on care or investments from faculty. Walden takes everyone with a pulse and a check, sticks them into the next monthly start date, gives them some pre-packaged courses run by a facilitator who just monitors discussion board posts and open-book tests, has the students set up their own clinicals with 0 oversight (have a friend sign off on the hours? no problem!!) and then they pass our woefully easy, pathetically watered down "board exams" and call themselves an NP. It's borderline terrifying and the worst thing is that people like you don't want our profession to do any better. You actually advocate for these programs...why? Why do you not want to see rigorous standards so that when people see an NP they think "that person knows what they're doing" instead of "oh gosh hope she didn't get a joke online degree and become an NP overnight, can I please see a physician instead?"

Nothing I say is going to change your mind because you have chosen to believe that somehow, a school that is publicly traded on the stock market and accepts 100% of people who apply even if they are literally ignorant is somehow equal to places like Vanderbilt, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Emory, etc. There is nothing that can be said to change the mind of someone who has dug their heels in and believes such obviously ridiculous things. Just go out into the world and cover your resume in Walden and Phoenix and understand that when there is competition for a job and someone who went to a real school applies, your resume goes right into the garbage. I have seen it myself, those schools are the laughingstock of the medical world. Believe what you want, but those schools are designed for the people who can't do any better and cannot get into real schools so they chose the "easy" way and went to the school with no admission standards, monthly start dates, and where you can get your degree by posting in discussion forums part-time for 2 years, arranging your own clinical, and then calling yourself an NP.

But in every other profession there is a general "educated" and intelligent group of leaders who rightfully ridicule and insult this stuff so people are too ashamed to even go to these schools. Look how physicians and med students talk about "Caribbean medical schools.” Meanwhile here our main forum has literal ads for these programs and over half the people posting here not only defend them but believe they are equal to legitimate schools. Is it just a lack of intelligence? Is nursing just incapable of policing itself to remove bad actors? Are nurses just this gullible compared to every other profession? It's so, so sad.

Looks like you went to one that doesn't require basic grammar skills?

You're embarrassing yourself and this profession. Schools that accept 100% of applicants are a joke, end of story. The reality is that there are Many people who are too dumb to be medical providers and admissions should wean them out. At reputable schools they do, because they CARE about their reputation. At diploma mills the goal is money so they accept everyone who applies - they can't lose a single dollar of that sweet sweet tuition money. And why do for profit schools thrive in the nursing industry? Because read this forum, a whole army of people who don't have enough basic intelligence to see a scam and actually have the audacity to defend these joke programs as reputable, with arguments such as "we don't need to be as good as medical school anyway!”