aurora155

I am in nursing school now, and it is a second career for me. So far, I'm doing OK! At my clinicals in hospital settings, just about all the nurses work 12 hour shifts except the ones with most seniority who were employed before the change in policy to only hire new nurses for 12 hour shifts. Just wanted to let you know that, in case that was important. It does appeal to some people to work three 12 hour shifts a week.

Last year this event was open to both accepted and waitlisted students. I encourage all in either of those categories to attend (if invited, of course). You get to tour the Clinical Performance Lab, which will make you excited to start! You also get the chance to meet quite a few faculty members. Talking with them can give you a good sense of the program, and might help you make your admissions decision. It is definitely worth taking time out from studying from an anatomy exam for. You don't have to stay the whole time--just go for an hour.

This quarter I have classes all day two days a week, including both labs and lectures. I have clinicals all day two other days each week. I have one day free, but they occasionally schedule things on this day. I also have to go to the hospital the night before clinicals to pick up my patient(s) and usually spend a couple of hours there getting the info I need. Then I go home and work quite a few hours preparing my clinical write-up for the next day, which is 15+ pages. This quarter there is way too much to do and way too much new information to learn, so I am not doing that well in my classes. I wish I had more time to learn.Pros: --All the students in my cohort are really nice and we get along and cooperate well. --For the most part, the faculty are very nice too, and want to see you succeed. Some faculty are definitely better instructors than others! --If you want to work with vulnerable populations, this is the place for you. The faculty are very committed to helping the underserved. --The Clinical Performance Lab is a great facility. --I have had my clinicals at some really good sites--major hospitals in the Seattle area. --Seattle U is in a great location, on First Hill, for proximity to many hospitals. Cons: --The program is pretty disorganized--probably my main complaint. You have to provide your own high degree of structure to succeed. --I would like it better if the pre-licensure part of the program was 5 quarters instead of 4. They try to fit too much into 4 quarters. --The work load is spread out very unevenly. Fall quarter was relatively easy and we had no clinical at all. Winter quarter is incredibly hard and busy and we have two clinicals (Med-Surg and Peds). They put what are probably the two hardest clinicals in the same quarter. Scratching my head on that one... I worry that I am not learning these critical subject areas well enough. Summer was also very busy--a relatively easy clinical, but lots of content. Spring looks like it will be very busy with clinicals--three days a week--but I don't think the content will be as hard. --There is no flexibility in changing specialties once you start. I think this is common among the direct entry programs, though. I only applied to Seattle U and one other school and have not ever wished I had chosen the other program. No place is perfect. Seattle U is "good enough" for my purposes.

Hello everyone, I am in the APNI 2010 cohort and reading this thread brings back memories from last year. There are people in my class who were waitlisted and made it into the program. My interpretation of waitlisted is that you are qualified to do the program, and would have been accepted if there had been enough spots. (I don't think anyone gets on the waitlist who is not judged to be qualified.) There is a lot of jockeying that goes on as people make their final choices of school, so spots do open up. Seattle U tends to be one of the last to get everything settled, as many programs have application deadlines in October and so are a couple of months ahead. Good luck to all!

JKP, I'm just beginning my Psych NP training, and very few in my program have psych training--it's a direct entry program, so they expect you to enter from other fields. I hope there will be jobs when I graduate. I went to an orientation for the new students and when I told a professor I was Psych track, she said, "that's a good, marketable specialty," so I hope that bodes well. I told my family doc what I would be studying and she told me to hurry up, as she never as enough Psych NPs to refer patients to.

If it makes a difference to you, I think one can begin a Direct Entry nursing program with less healthcare experience than a PA program. I am beginning a direct entry nursing master's program soon and my classmates have a wide range of healthcare experience--some with very little, some with a lot. I have a friend trying to get into a PA program, and this particular program requires a minimum of 4000 hours of paid healthcare experience (direct patient care). I don't know if that is typical of PA programs. He has been getting his experience working as a CNA and EMT. Of course, clinical experience also looks good on your nursing application (either paid or volunteer). If you want to start building up those hours, you can get your CNA while in college (I took an evening course for about $600 and got my CNA in less than 3 months), and work part-time. On the other hand, this PA program requires less academic preparation (fewer college prerequisites) than the nursing programs.

Thanks, Lucianne. You sound like a wonderful preceptor. Is there typically a choice in placement to align with one's interests (e.g. community mental health vs. residential treatment)? Anyone else?

I'm really encouraged by all the posts here on successful treatment. I think I've had PF for about a decade. My doctor told me to do exercises which didn't help much and then suggested icing whenever they hurt. I didn't seem to be able to communicate to her that this is a constant problem, not like a sore muscle that hurts once in a while. How can you ice your feet every waking moment? Finally, she gave me prescription (but not custom) orthotics, and these helped a lot. They are hard plastic. I also wear sturdy shoes with lots of cushioning. But my feet still hurt every day and standing for a long time is very painful. After a long walk somewhere, and then sitting, I am pretty much in hobble-mode for the rest of the day. Because of th is, I have been unable to keep up on my regular amount of exercise, and I have gained weight. I am going to try some of the suggestions in this thread. I never thought I would be able to get the relief described here--my doctor seemed to think this was a lifelong condition and I just had to put up with the pain and adjust my lifestyle accordingly.

Thanks, David. Makes sense.

I understand about low overhead in Mental Health, but why can PMHNPs charge cash and have patients bill their own insurance companies whereas other NP specialties cannot? Can't FNPs do this? (Probably this question is naive, but I'm just getting into this.) Thanks.

Very good info in this thread for me too. Thanks for the posts, all. In my state, people with master's level degrees in psychology cannot be licensed or reimbursed as "Psychologists", but they can be licensed as other mental health care providers, such as LMHC and LMFT, which are reimbursable for psychotherapy services, same as LCSWs. No difference in reimbursement rate between LMHC, LMFT, and LCSW. I think this varies a lot by state. It is my plan to go the PMHNP route, and if possible, take extra graduate psych courses along the way to bolster my nursing training.

TristanT, what are some examples of clinical placements for UW MEPN students? Why do you think so many were bad? Does the faculty have few contacts with clinical sites to set them up? Thanks.

rockett, I spoke to UW Financial Aid last week, and they said I would have my financial aid award letter by the end of this week (for GEPN). Maybe it won't happen so soon, but that's what I was told. They said it would appear online in MyUW. I anticipate any aid will be loans, but I am curious to see. I do know that the UW deposit to hold one's space in GEPN was the most expensive of any place I applied. I guess just one more way to get money in these times of the diminished state budget.

Do you think it is harder to get financial aid if it is your second degree?

When you were a Psych-NP student, what kind of psych placements did you have for your clinicals? Did you do clinicals in hospitals, community mental health clinics, nursing homes, or other places? What were they like? Did you see patients individually? Did you have longer term placements than might be typical in other specialties, to allow for continuity with patients and building therapeutic relationships? How long were the placements in psych? Thanks.