ladybugmo

I am a family psychiatric/mental health NP with over 30 years of experience.

Wow, I feel for the patients in your care who have different views than yourself. I think you missed a few classes in Psych 101.

I highly advise against that. That is almost exactly what I have been doing, and unless you have EVERYTHING spelled out in a contract, you may find that what is supposed to be provide is lacking. If you decide to do this, please make sure you consider everything that could happen/go wrong and have an attorney go over the contract before you sign it!

Two words....Jimmy Buffett!

Ashi, first, check with the school from which you graduated. Many have a career placement office and those folks may be able to help you. Second, you may want to check with area LTC facilities. Many will hire new graduates. It may not be exactly what you want to do, but in this economy, a job is a job especially when it is your first one out of school. I haven't worked agency very much, but always make sure you know what your contract says. Some agencies have a non-compete clause that says you cannot become an employee of a facility you work in through the agency for a specified period of time. Sometimes, this can be worked out between the agency and the facility if the facility wants to hire you. If this arises in the future, it might be better to approach the agency first. You don't want to bite the hand that feeds you!

I totally know the feeling. I graduated from a NP program in December 2007, and I have been sick with various things at least 4-5 times since. I think we are very exhausted and our immune systems are down when we finally finish school. Then, we start out first jobs and are working very hard. Our systems don't have time to recover from the stress of classes, clinicals, etc. I have started taking alot of vitamins and supplements, don't know if it helps but I haven't been sick in a couple of months. A friend told me that the first year of practice is the most stressful, and I have certainly found that to be true. Hang in. The time passes really fast.

Unfortunately, cheating in nursing school is more common than most of us realize. Happened in my BSN class several years ago. NOTHING was done. In my opinion, anyone caught cheating should be kicked out of the program immediately. If one will cheat on a test, they will cheat a patient of the care that is deserved.

Advanced Pharm was pretty intense. Concentrate on the classes of medications. Then look at the individual meds within the class and determine if any are particularly unique. If that is the case, make sure you know how they are unique and what implications that would have for prescribing. Good luck! In my opinion, patho was more difficult than advanced pharm.

Matt, I don't know where the biggest demand is, but the job outlook for psych NP's seems to be pretty good across the country. I gather this from doing job searches on the various websites. As far as independent practice goes, I think it just depends on the state you are practicing in. Some time ago, there was a chart comparing the various states floating around. I will see if I can locate that for you.

Thank you for the info. I seemed to remember something like that but couldn't remember the specifics!

RN007, thanks for the PM.....can't figure out how to reply to it!!! I haven't posted very much, so I may not be able to yet. I don't know exactly how that works.

I live in middle Tennessee, about 50 miles from Nashville. I've always wanted to live in east Tennessee. Maryville is so beautiful.

RNOO7, I am in Tennessee.....looks like you might be also.

Hello everyone. I am a psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner who graduated in 2007. I currently contract with a privately owned mental health center and with a physician, so essentially I am considered a independent practitioner. This year has been dominated by filling out various applications for credentialing. It has been a very frustrating waiting game. Just getting a medicare number, which is required for all the other credentialing applications, took no less than four months! As far as what I do all day, I do medication management more than anything else. I really like that aspect of my job, but you must realize that when you are seeing a patient every 15 minutes, there is no time to actually do therapy with them. While in school, I spent 45 minutes to an hour with each patient and did both med management and therapy, so this was an adjustment for me. Working with the physician is wonderful. He and his staff are so supportive! Unfortunately, this is not the case at the mental health center. The owner of the mental health center and the therapists who work there seem to think that I am at their beck and call 24 hours a day seven days a week. There is very little support from the office staff, and I end up doing alot of clerical jobs that should be taken care of by the support staff. Lesson learned from this: if you go this route, make sure everything is spelled out explicitly in your contract! As far as salary goes, I really can't give you an accurate estimation yet. I have worked most of this year for essentially nothing due to the time it takes to get all the credentialing in place. At both practice locations, I pay the facility a percentage. Much of the time, I am waiting for insurance payments to come in. This is getting better, but if you choose to work as an independent contractor, realize that you probably are not going to see very much money for the first year. I really wish I had known this in advance! In the area where I live, there are very few P/MH NP's. I really wish I had known someone to ask questions of and who could have given me advice regarding contracting and the credentialing process. I think this would have made the process alot easier. If you have any questions, I will gladly try to answer them.

I don't see any way to PM you....If you click on "Ladybugmo" then choose public profile, then click on "vcard", you should get my email address. Talk to you soon