*RN123ABC*

ugh, stop GL, you are scaring me. Seriously, these patients are the main reason I want out of the hospital. I am sure they will always be around, but at least in my area, the NPs here can discharge drug seekers from the practice if they can't make any headway with them. As the bedside nurse, not only do I have to deal with them, and the constant parade of borderline personalities who make puny suicidal "gestures," but I get the privildege of waiting on them hand and foot. These same people might walk into my office and they get 10 minutes, no enabling, no backrubs, no waitressing, and no sponge baths!! Just a proverbial boot in the rear if their behavior is really eggregious. The reason I want to be a NP is coach people to healthier choices and a better quality of life. And that isn't just my answer to the admission committee, lol, it is how I really feel.

You can look at the Health and Human services website to see if there is an area identified as high needs that you might be willing to relocate to in exchange for federal dollars toward your outstanding loans. Also, the Indian Health Service has very high needs and generous loan repayment programs. It was some time ago I looked at it, but IIRC, it is in the neighborhood of a 2 year committment for every 25K they give you. My county and all the surrounding counties are on the "emergency needs" list, which until recently I never thought of as a good thing!

I guess you are referring to the regents program? I have never heard anything about it. Some buzz that it exists, but haven't heard of anyone actually going through it yet. I will tell you that ETSUs reputation in this area is unsurpassed. The NP students take many of their classes alongside the med students in the Quillen school, so you know they are top notch. I am in Western NC and most of our area NPs went there. A friend of mine's spouse is a ED physician at a hospital in East TN. He precepts many students from ETSU, WesternCarolinaU, Vanderbilt, etc. He states that the ETSU students are far and away the best prepared, but after a few months they are indistinguishable. However, that is in reference to their on the ground program. There are two NPs running an urgent care clinic in town. One went to ETSU, the other Johns Hopkins. They are both terrific, but the one who went to ETSU is driving a new BMW, and the one from Hopkins is driving a 15 y/o subaru and paying off student loans, undergrad to Duke and Grad to JH. It has got to hurt to write those checks every month. I considered ETSUs program since it is so highly regarded, but in the end it's structure will not mesh with the rest of my life. In any event, I can only assume that ETSU applies the same stringent standards to the Regents program as it does the on the ground program. Good luck!

Do you mind sharing where you went?

Thank you for failing him. Just Saturday night I took care of a commercial truck driver having his 9th AMI. He is 5'7", 308 pounds, smokes 3 packs a day, is a noncompliant insulin dependent diabetic and was eating a hamburger and "throwing bck a few beers" when he had the onset of chest pain this time. I asked him "How on earth do you gt a CDL license with your health hx?" He said, verbatim quote: "It's easy, you just have to pass the physical." I dropped it, but thought to myself, what jackass is passing this guy? He is going to kill someone, no doubt.

I am not personally acquainted with the Vandy grads, save one. She was not a DE stuent. She had been a CCU/ED nurse for about 10 years. I was suprised to hear she didn't take to NP, b/c when I knew her as a coworker in the unit, she was excellent. Just goes to show you it is more about the individual than the school I guess!

And on another note, is there a reliable place that ranks graduate nursing programs? I've never seens one and I hope to be presented with a tough choice myself here, very soon.

I am acquainted with a physician that is a graduate of Emory. Great school, right? He's a moron. The other docs are pretty vocal about not trusting him. He's in internal med, was on call, surgeon wanted a med opinion on an issue tangential to his primary problem. Finding out who was on call for medicine, the surgeon told me, "don't let that fool anywhere near any patient I am taking care of." You know it's bad when other doctors openly disparage one of their own. I'm sure the guy in question had good grades, and just can't put it into practice. He once wanted to give vitK to an AMI pt. He got the whole coagulate/anticoagulate thing backwards. We reminded him, he said, "oh yeah, right." What if he'd given that order to one of these new grads they are sticking in ICUs these days? I digress. Vandy is a good school, so is Duke. I don't think they turn out better NPs than ETSU or Western Carolina, for instance. And if you stay in the TN/VA/Carolina's, it won't matter. It you move to GrandRapids, I suspect the name Vanderbilt or Duke will get and "oh, really, great." It may actually get someone the job over a state school graduate, all other things being equal. The OP didn't say what the "big name school" is. I stand by my verbose assessment up thread. If it is one of the genuine Ivy League schools, and if one is eyeing a career in academia, it might be worth it. Othrwise, I doubt it.

I get where you are coming from, because I have kids who have been in the same position. I do appreciate the value of an Ivy League education. If your expensive school is one of the genuine Ivy's, I might go for it. Outside of those, I don't think it matters at all. And in nursing in particular, I think it matters very little, even if it is Yale or Harvard. I am most familiar with my part of the country, the southeast. No disrespect to the earlier poster who attended Vandy, but in this area, East TN State U has a far better reputation for 1/5 the price tag. A few Vandy grads out our way performed poorly and pretty much ruined it for the rest. The ETSU grads dazzled everyone and it is now regarded as the best NP program ever!!! lol. I'm sure 98% of graduates of both programs come out well prepared. Point being, that it is all subjective. I applied to Duke, but I'll only go if they give me the maximum merit award. Anything less, Western Carolina here I come. And everyoe thinks I' nuts for not wanting to go to "the best NP progrm in existence," ETSU. The only reason, I have a conflict with Wednesdays that is too important to me to change. ETSU on the ground classes are all days on Wednesdays. Can't go there, very simple. My real life comes first. I am originally an ADN from a no name coummunity college, and the BSN later from a small regionally known (for football, lol) college. In 15 years of practice, not once has anyone asked me where I went to nursing school. I could have gone to Duke for the whole undergrad right? I could have spent all that money to end up in exactly the same place. I realize prospective employeers look, but I have never not gotten a job I applied for, so I don't think it would have made any difference in my circumstances. There are a few things about the IVY league schools that make them worth it, but it isn't really the education. I have kids in an Ivy (Dartmouth) and a Tier 1 school (U of Chicago), and the difference is who they are going to school with, i.e. the networking! My son sits beside a Kennedy in his Spanish Lit course. I didn't sit next to any Kennedys in any of my community college classes. Will my son be able to call up Hyannis Port and ask if he can drop by? I dont know, maybe, he is pretty charming. Will that translate into a better job, more opportunity, more respect? I doubt it. He may get a letter or rec some day from Ms Caroline, lol, but in the end he'll sink or swim based on his own performance. We sent out kids to the very best schools they could get into that we could afford. We saved for almost 20 years to pay for it, they inherited money that has helped (a lot), they got some merit scholarship dollars and their granparents send them $100 bucks every week so they don't have to work. Lucky them. I wouldn't not have let them borrow the kind of money you are talking about. I understand the real value of any ivy league education, but it isn't always worth the cost. If your parents and grandparents aren't paying, I'd really think twice. Also, IME, nursing is not really a field that puts much emphasis on that sort of thing. I bet it comes up if you want a tenure track faculty position. Yale school of nursing probably impresses more than my community college and patchwork education that followed. Then again, you dont want to be better educated than the person interviewing you, they see you as a threat and you won't get the job. Perhaps THAT is the reason I always did get the job. Mousy me from middle of nowhere community and technical college has never threated anyone. I just take the job and earn my reputation on my own. I rant. It is a tough deicsion. Coming from a family that has traditionally gone Ivy, and aiming even to send my own kids Ivy if possible, I am someone who understands the appeal, the intrinsic value of the name. I get it. But I am also pragmatic nurse who knows, at the end ofthe day, it isn't really going tomake a differnece in your practice inthe long run. I probably would not advise you to go there were you my child, not if you had to incur that much debt. good luck to you!

Isn't is really a moot point? I know a dozen NPs and I don't know a single one that goes by a title. They are not Mr or Ms so and so. They are Sue, Joe and Mike, etc, the nurse practitioner. I really doubt if "Mike" goes back for his DNP, he is going to say, "Sorry, you can't call me Mike anymore, I'm Dr. Smith to you now." Seriously, NPs just don't have that kind of authoratiative relationship with patients; it really defies the nature of nursing practice. So what difference does it make what they call themselves at church suppers? The PhamDs at my hosp go by their first names. If they wanted to be called doctor, I guess we'd call them that. I doubt there would be sudden onset of confusion. Hell, we call the CEO Doctor (he demands it), and he has an Ed.D. I'm sure when patients and community people hear the CEO of a hospital system referred to as "Doctor" they assume he is a physician. I guess we don't have to worry though, b/c he is a germaphobe and OCD, he doesn't go near "sick people!" And I'm not buying the "confusing for patients" business. All that needs to happen is for WEBMD to run one article about the DNP and the patients will all be saavy to it, lol. 80% of my patients are more informed (not always well informed, but they google like mad people) about their myriad of disorders than I am. Another 18% are educatable, that last 2% can't be taught that LittleDebbie is not a food group, so the intricacies of specialty practice are going to be as mysterious as the aurora borealis anyway. The general public will require an explanation and an introduction, once. They will get it. If the DNP makes us better clinicians (I'm not convinced, but I'm waiting to see what develops) I'm all for it. My patients (and you guys) will still be able to call me the Wunder though.

Honestly, I thought the GRE was pretty easy. I didn't prep at all, other than read the NYT every day (a vocab boost). In retrospect, I wish I had practiced writing, b/c I only got a 4 and I'm not happy with that. Upper tier sachools want a 5 minimum for a PhD program, so I will have to retake it. The math is high school stuff regurgitated until the very end, when they throw some John Nash **** in there for giggles, lol. The verbal is straightforward, no trickery. You just have to have a good grasp of vocabulary. I subscribe to a word of the day program and read good papers and magazines. I think it is the best way to expand my venacular language. I had to take Latin in grammer school though, and that hs helped. Kids should still take Latin, I think....I digress.

I really appreciatre your response!

I work with an ED physician who is widely known (by other docs as well) to order every available test just to cover his own incompetence, so it doesn't shock me that a NP might. I just don't think it is fair to make blanket statements, regardless of who they are about. It speaks more about the person saying it than whomever he is referring to IMO.

I saw a story in MSNBC that college financial aid is drying up and that student loans are going to be very hard to get next year. They were speaking about undergrad specifically, but I assume the same will apply to graduate programs. I filled out the FASFA and my EFC is about $7500. First of all, I can't pay that, I have children in college. Secondly, all the programs I applied to are far more expensive than that. Their fin aid depts can't work with me until I am actually accepted obviously, but I am worried. All of this effort and angst and I may not be able to go anyway! Those of you that are already accepted to a program, have you gotten an indication from the fin aid departments about how easy it will be to secure financiing?

I think all of the program are getting many more applications this year. I was in email contact with MUSC and they said they have been inundated with applications for their brand new DNP program. Thy have many many more applications than they anticipated (she didn't give me a number). MUSC is in a hiring freeze, and they could not fill their department vacancies, and don't have enough staff to help them go through all the applications. She also indicated that they don't know how many they are going to accept, because they cannot hire faculty either. Bottom line, it is going to take a while.

I am full of third hand information today. Like you, I was looking for student feedback last year, and I emailed with a member here who attends the ANP program at GWU. She had very positive things to say about it. I believe she was halfway through at the time. She said they had had one bad professor, but that the University was very responsive to the students' concerns and took steps to remedy the situation almost immediately. She also said that the sense of community among the students in her group was very strong, that it was genially competitive, not at all "cutthroat." Most of them had never met in person, but they were all very close and supportive. The only negative things were that financial aid is hard to come by, though she was paying cash. Her fellow students had indicated they had a hard time securing assistance. She also said that she worked one 12 hour shift a week and she did not really think it possible for anyone to work more than that and be successful.

One of my profs got her DNP from Rush. She has nothing but terrific things to say about the whole experience. She already had a PhD and said that for her, the DNP was more demanding b/c the traditional research and writting was more straightforward and there were more resources to go to. She thought the clinical research project was more challenging, because she couldn't do a retrospective study, she has to acutally conduct her own clinical project. She says the DNP may be a shortcut to a doctorate at some Universities, but it is NOT at Rush. Expect to earn it. That said, she kind of discouraged me from applying htere b/c she admitted that she would not have borrowed 30K a year to go there. Her husband is a cardiothoracic surgeon and paid for it for her. My husband will have trouble lending me the money for legal pads. Like Vandy, Rush seems to be outstanding, if you can afford it.

Tammy: Eric (at Duke) told me that to be accepted into the DNP program, a candidate must first be accepted into the MSN program. When the MSN program roster is complete, the applicants further applying for the DNP will be forwarded on to that committee. So MSN applicants may be hearing something in March, but DNP applicants won't hear until late April. It is entirely possible to be accepted into the MSN program but not the DNP. I also called George Washington: their admissions committee is meeting in April. It reminds me of the line in Ghostbusters when they guys got fired and Dan Ackroid was lamenting having to leave the University and go to work in the private sector. He didn't want to do that because "they expect results." The endless committee meetings in the University enviornment must be mind numbing. I missed the app deadline for UNCs School of Public Health too. :sigh:

Today I find out a different professor never sent her electronic LOR to MUSC. They cannot consider my app, since the deadline was 2/1. That app cost me over $100 in various fees, so I'm a might po'd at the prof. Jebus, just tell me if you aren't going to follow through! I emailed her and she said, "oh gee, I thought I did Ill try to get to it this week." dont bother sister, its too late. I paid the GRE people 3 weeks ago to send my GRE scores to Duke, and they still haven't.

FWIW, I know someone who went to Vandy for ANP and said it is a great program. She was already employed as the RN in a cardiology office and they paid the whole nut, she just had to agree to work for x# of years at a slightly lower than average (for the area) salary. Since she worked there 40 hour a week, she actually got most of her clinical time, paid, at work, so it was a great situation for her. She does all the post op d/c teachig at the hosp, and f/u cath stuff inthe office. She isn't qualified to do much else, but she loves what she does. After 5 years, she is going to be alowed into profit sharing in the practice, and that is where the $ is going to some from! The cardiologist she works directly with brought home 3million last year! She expects to make 10% of that. So if you have a deal as sweet as that, go to Vandy. There is no way I could handle that amount of debt myself, unless that $300K pot of gold was assured!

Tammy: I mailed ole Eric my CV in a fancy vinyl folder, lol, with a copy of my license, my CCRN certificate, and an award letter I had from some volunteer work I do. I really do not care anymore if that is good enough. The first prof refused to submit a third time, so I asked a new prof to write another letter the other day. Now MUSC says they are missing a letter of rec. I want to jump off the roof! I swear, these electronic app systems are crap. I have a photocopy of the online recommendation the prof submitted (a different professor this time), the very same form they say they don't have. The prof who wrote it is out of the country. I am mailing them my copy. After all, I don't even have access to this form, and there is no way I could have possession of it, had the prof not followed the secure link they sent her, filled it out and printed it, and mailed me a copy. If they won't accept that, I"m bagging the whole thing. I have spent hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours pursuing this. Nursing is going to lose a potentially great NP, b/c I'm just going to go into a MPH program if this fails. I am about to get divorced, one of my kids is having a nervous breakdown (unrelated to mine, lol) and I have severe financial problems that will likely force me to leave my house by summer. I have had it.

Now Duke wants a portfolio. WT_F am I supposed to put into a portfolio? I have been practicing nursing for 15 years, not making art! The admission advisor told me most people just put their CV in a binder and send that. I already sent them a CV, what is the freakin point of this exercise? I am willing to work harder to get a degree from a school as renown as Duke, but this smells like B_S. She said "expand on your CV." Expand how? I am ready to forget this crap and go to dental school. :-p

I couldn't take it anymore, I called them. GW said "application is complete, thank you for following up." ***? Duke said they are missing a letter of rec, though my prof insists she sent it. I'm pulling my hair out about that one.... ETSU lost my CV and wants another, Western NC reassigned my application since my coordinator quit and the new one will get back to me in a few days. MUSC wants to see my spring transcript in June before considering my app. I need a big glass of merlot, or I'm going to just freak out.

I applied to Duke, George Washington, MUSC, ETSU, and WCU in November. I haven't heard word one from any of them yet.

I am not an NP yet, but all staff nurses had to take a 4% paycut in my hospital system(and we already make 25% less than the rest of the state and the county across the nearby state line), and I'm told that included the NPs that fill in in the ED on busy holiday weekends. I haven't heard about our docs taking pay cuts, but one relatively new guy told me he is being paid half the national average already, so...Our hospital is about to go out of business alltogether. We were told paycuts were necessry to keep the doors open. Then the CEO got a brand new company SUV.