LouNurse

Krisssy I have a solution for you. I had no idea you're from Long Island!!!! I'm a fellow New Yorker now displaced in New Jersey. Ahhh, it's not too bad, I'm just over the GW Bridge. Anyway, enough babbling. Here's the solution..........SUNY Stonybrook offers a MSN Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner program online and you do the clinicals through their University Hospital. Just transfer from Missouri to SUNY Stonybrook...and you get the resident tuition rate since you're a NYS resident!!!!! Good Luck!!! Lou

lcprnc, I would suggest you complete a Post Graduate Certificate / Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner program, since you already have a MSN. A PhD is great if you plan to teach at the college/university level, but it will not allow you to practice as an "advanced practice nurse" (nurse practitioner). The PhD is more research driven. There are new Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs coming out now, although very scarce. The one in my area, offered by Columbia University, requires that you already be licensed as a Nurse Practioner and hold an MSN degree. Although some of these prgrams may not require that you already be a Nurse Practitioner, they all focus on Primary Care/Internal Medicine. There's none yet that focus on Psychiatry. So, the best bet for you is the PGC in Psych NP. Good luck!!!

Hi Krisssy, I'm enrolled in the MSN Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist/Nurse Practitioner program at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark campus. I'm attending full time and just completed my first semester. I have 7 years Emergency Room and Critical Care experience, but no psych. I love psych though, and that's why I chose this field. As far as the clinical sites for rotations are concerned, most want you to have psych experience before they place you, but the large inner city hospitals have a real shortage, and are grateful to have any NP students they can get, regardless of psych experience. It's really up to you to make it happen. I must stress that you do need strong primary care and diagnostic skills. Psychiatric patients are often very sick people because they don't take care of themselves. A vast majority are walking around with untreated hypertension and diabetes, and you will be responsible for making accurate health assessments and managing their medical conditions. You must also know when they need to be referred accordingly to other specialties. For many in this underserved population, you will function as their psychiatric and primary care practitioner. You will be responsible for making independent decisions. Hope this helps. Good luck with school!!!

Was wondering if anyone that has been through the interview process can shed some light on the "experience issue". I have noticed that most programs stipulate ICU experience while others allow ER experience. While there are vast differences among emergency departments nationwide, many, including mine, serve as "quasi-ICUs". We resuscitate, treat and maintain arrested patients coming in by ambulance, manage ventilated patients, use vasopressors and vasodilators, do continuous ECG monitoring, external/internal pacing, thrombolitics, and stabilize trauma. We also hold ICU patients when the "unit" is full. For Angioplasty/CABG or Neuro we transfer out to univ med center and serve as transport nurse. I do admit we don't see many a-lines or balloons. Can 5 years of this experience be used to get into program? What's your input?