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The position that I just accepted counted my years of RN and NP experience as part of the calculation for my salary; although, the RN experience is weighted less. Only time that RN experience has affected my salary as an NP. I believe there's a limit to how much RN experience is beneficial for the new grad NP. The type of RN experience matters as well. I had 5 years of beside MICU experience, including CCRN certification, before starting my first NP position in Family Medicine. I can't say any more years of RN experience would've been beneficial. More clinical hours during school and a post-grad residency would've been way more beneficial as a new grad NP than more years as an RN. I'm currently precepting a new grad NP with 20 years of ER experience as part of my organization's Primary Care Fellowship Program. It's been quite difficult to get her out of the bedside RN mindset and into that of an NP, but we've made some progress. The only leg up her RN experience has given her is she can determine sick vs not sick most of the time and knows when to ask for help when she's out of her league, again, most of the time. Knowledge and skill base wise, she's just as green as any new grad NP in Primary Care. I say this as someone who has trained many new grad NPs in Primary Care.

Ferri's Clinical Advisor may be what you're looking for.

If you're a member of the AANP, you can browse the CE Center. There's also the American Family Physician journal.

If you're wanting to do any type of inpatient work with adults, then you are better off attending an AGACNP program as you'll be better prepared to care for that population. The current FNP curriculum focuses on primary care across the lifespan, which does not include didactics and clinical rotations in hospital medicine, critical care medicine, or surgery. We did cover a very small portion of emergency medicine and knowing when a patient needs to be admitted and/or have surgery, but beyond that, it is out of our scope as FNPs. That being said, the majority of Cardiology practices in my region require NPs to be AGACNP certified as they often require coverage of the the cardiac ICU and/or cardiology floor(s).

To echo previous posters, your happiness is worth more than a small decrease in salary. We spend some much of our lives at work that it isn't worth it in the longterm to be unhappy and unfulfilled, professionally. I recently switched jobs for similar reasons as yours and did have to take a small pay cut to do so, but the new job's benefits more than outweigh that small drop in pay.

I used Board Vitals as my question bank to help prepare for the ANCC FNP exam in 2017. Pros: 1) Thousands of questions across several topics 2) Question banks geared toward the ANCC and AANP FNP exams 3) Rationales for each answer are very detailed with sources 4) Questions are harder than what's on the actual exam 5) Can receive CE credit for answering questions 6) Can track performance based upon topics 7) Can create customized quizzes Cons: 1) Bit pricey but sometimes offer discounts 2) Subscription-based payment system 3) Must pay extra to receive CE credit

I agree with @FullGlass that COVID-19 has made finding a position as a new grad NP even harder. There has been an uptick in job positions in my region of NorCal, especially for PMHNPs and experienced NPs in various specialities. In fact, I recently accepted a new position at a very large primary care practice in a major metropolitan area here in NorCal known to have a very competitive job market for NPs. What kind of NP certification do you hold? How much experience do you have? @mrsannRN

If you're looking to break into primary care, then I'd suggest relocating to a rural area or working with underserved populations in more urban settings in order to get the prerequisite experience that you need. I still see several positions posted for experienced FNPs to work in Family Medicine or Internal Medicine in my region of Northern California, although most seem to be for clinics whose population overwhelmingly is served by Medi-Cal. I agree with @FullGlass. I don't think PMHNP is the way to go unless you have a passion for psychiatry and truly want to work in that speciality. There is a reason they are compensated so well; it's a challenging area of medicine not many people are cut out for.

In the beginning, it was a combination of seeing A LOT of new patients and seeing established patients for sick visits or follow-up's if their usual provider wasn't available that day. Some of those established patients switched over to me as their preferred provider. I am openly gay, so I'm the one who sees the majority of the LGBT+ patients and/or children of LGBT+ parents. My skill in conversational Spanish has also garnered me a sizeable following of Spanish-speakers.

I am clinical faculty at a local medical school and precept medical students (M3s) for their pediatric clerkship. They have didactics taught by another professor on Friday, so I am responsible for their clinical experience and helping them apply what they learn in class to actual practice. At the end of the clerkship, I am the one who completes their evaluation.

No regrets here! Overall, I really enjoy Family Medicine. I didn't realize the value of a PCP until I became one myself! I've really enjoyed the long-term relationship building with patients and families and take great pride in being their go-to source for medical information. My work is very intellectually engaging and rewarding. The good days definitely out weight the bad, for sure.

We used Amelie Hollier's book during my FNP program. It was a great text for school as it summarized the most common conditions well, but it is definitely limited in the amount and depth of content it covers. If you are looking for something like 5 Minute Clinical Consult, I would go with Ferri's Clinical Advisor. It is a huge text, and the information isn't hidden behind a website that requires a subscription. I have a copy of the 2018 version, and it's a good reference if you need to read about a topic fairly quickly.

Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2019 Current Diagnosis and Treatment Pediatrics Urgent Care Dermatology: Symptom-Based Diagnosis A Manual of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests Essentials of Musculoskeletal Care, 5th Edition These are the books that I have on my bookshelf at work, but I find myself using Up-to-Date and American Family Physician most of the time because it is easier and quicker to look up information. The website for Essentials of Musculoskeletal Care is an amazing resource with assessment videos and patient education materials (e.g., home exercise programs for various injuries). Urgent Care Dermatology has been really helpful as the skin conditions are organized based up appearance versus diagnosis. I have a ton of other books, but the ones listed above are the ones that I use most often.

I second the use of Pocket Primary Care. It was one of my favorite resources during school. Clinician's Guide to Laboratory Medicine was also very helpful!

Gain some good, solid experience as an RN in the ED, ICU or med/surg floor before moving on to FNP. Take care of the sickest, most complex patients whenever you can and obtain specialty certification in the area in which you work. I attended a brick-and-mortar state school that required a certain number of community service hours in order to graduate. I did way more than the minimum and carefully chose the types of volunteering activities I wanted to do. This seemed to really impress prospective employers and gave me a lot to talk about during interviews.

I work in primary care Monday thru Friday 8a-5p. Our office schedules the last AM appointment at 11a and the last PM appointment at 4p. Our lunch hours are from 12p - 1:30p. I usually leave the office at 6p, but sometimes earlier depending on how busy the day was. I seldom chart at home or on the weekends, but Epic is available to me on my laptop if needed. It's taken me some time, but I've learned that I can't finish EVERYTHING in 1 day, that my work is never actually done. It's not like a 12-hr shift where one can pass off what wasn't done to the next nurse. I don't have admin time, so I've learned to prioritize my work and complete the most urgent tasks first. Overall, I would say my work-life balance is better than as an RN. I did have more days off as an RN, but it's nice having the evenings, weekends, and holidays off along with the rest of the working world. If I ever need to take some time off from work, my clinic manager is pretty accommodating. I try to give her as much notice as possible, so it's easier to reschedule patients.

If anyone is going to prescribe methadone or buprenorphine for opioid addiction, then they will need a waiver from the DEA. AFAIK, addiction medicine isn't part of the AGACNP curriculum but is for PMHNPs. It is important for us an NPs to know our scope of practice and not rely on employers because as @djmatte mentioned, many think an NP is an NP is an NP. SECTION VI – OPIOID (NARCOTIC) ADDICTION TREATMENT PROGRAMS

I have to agree with @djmatte, PMHNP would be a better fit for this patient population as it doesn't quite line up w/ the consensus model for AGACNPs.

The practice for which I work does not pay extra for call. This includes MD's and NP's.

If you enjoy the duties of the nurses and not the physicians, I would seriously rethink about becoming a nurse practitioner. What we do day-to-day mirrors our physician counterparts even though our academic preparation is different. You can still obtain expertise in your clinical area as an RN through certification, continuing education, experience, and self-reflective practice. For example, there is the PNCB for both registered nurses and nurse practitioners to obtain specialty certification in pediatrics.

After working adult critical care for a few years, I wanted to focus on keeping folks out of the hospital due to unmanaged or poorly managed chronic conditions. So, I enrolled in an FNP program and continued working in critical care until I landed my first and current NP job in pediatric primary care (with a little family medicine). I have never worked as an RN in peds even though I had the opportunity to transfer to the Peds ER while in FNP school (my boss at the time was very flexible with my schedule, and it was something I could not give up). Pediatrics was my favorite rotation in FNP school and nursing school as well! I love taking care of the kiddos and doing my best to keep them healthy in hopes that they'll continue to be healthy adults as well. Plus, it's amazing to watch kids grow over time and getting to know them and their families very well. Peds has been very rewarding for me, and it's where I want to stay for the rest of my career. :)

As an FNP in pediatric primary care, I would suggest attending a PNP-PC program if your end goal is to work solely in pediatrics. You'll be much better prepared right out the gate to take care of children. It's a much different ball game than adults. My program wasn't exactly peds-lite, and we took the same primary care class as the PNP-PC/AC students that covered the entire breadth of pediatric primary care. My peds rotation was in a primary care clinic who had a large population of kids with chronic and congenital conditions. I saw some pretty rare stuff as well as kids who had PEG tubes and home vents! That exposure really helped when I started my job. After 6 months, I'm certainly catching up, but there are days I wish that I would've done the PNP-PC instead as this is an area that I really wanna stay in. :)

Having little control over situations and the plan of care, family complaints, as well as constantly being blamed for other departments' or disciplines' mistakes wore on me as critical care nurse. It's what stressed me out the most, not the medical/surgical emergencies or patient acuity. Being a NP is a very different kind of stress because the buck now stops with me, but it's much more manageable than the stress I experienced as an RN. I'm only 6 months in as new grad NP, but it gets a little better each month with the more I learn and experience. I'm finally figuring out "my groove" so to speak! Even with the added responsibilities of being an NP, I would never go back to working as a RN. I really enjoy the autonomy, intellectual challenge, and work-life balance that being an NP affords me.

Would someone be available by phone for questions? Any chart review to go over cases? UpToDate to look things up?

I worked alongside with my collaborating physician for 4 months before I began practicing solo. It could've been longer, but we have a few providers on maternity leave at our other sites, so he has been helping those clinics out. Right before it was time for me to practice solo, we had a couple of meetings about my performance. He assured me that he is always available by text or phone call (he really is!) and that I was more than capable of handling a full schedule by myself. I still call and text him questions (especially situations that aren't black-and-white) but also use the resources available to me to make informed clinical decisions (e.g., UpToDate, pocket guides, textbooks, etc.). I try to keep a log of clinical situations that were difficult for me and seek out CEUs to help improve my knowledge base.