paulnp

My two thoughts were occupational health np or adult/family np with a focus on college health. Possibly also acnp with an ed or urgent care focus. Good luck!

Hi. I work in a large Cardiology group with 14 Nps who do mostly (80%) inpatient care. We have become more and more reticent to hire non-ACNPs because the learning curve is so great. ACNPs seem to learn the outpatient care readily while FNPs and ANPs have hard time learning inpatient care. However, if you are able to choose your own clinical sites, we have had some FNPs who have dne substantial inpatient rotations and have been great. Good luck

I work in California so may be geographically biased. At both hospitals I work at ACNPs make a lot more than PAs. In fact, PAs make less per hour than most staff nurses (I make 79/hour as an NP). You can view UCSF's pay scale on line (lower than most hospitals). Northern California Kaiser Permanente now has an official policy that you must hire an NP before an equally qualified PA. We do have numerous PAs in the surgical specialties, especially orthopaedics. Few NPs work in the surgical specialties, possibly because there is only one ACNP program in Northern California. Both professions seem to be well respected at my facilities, but NPs a little more so. I think this is because of the quality of UCSF graduates vs the local PA programs, and not the professions in general. Good luck.