cyzow

Hey all, I am currently enrolled in grad school working toward my FNP. I am a little worried about FNP salary. School is expensive and being able to pay back my loans is kind of important. In my area in Oregon acute care RN wages are very good, (I make about 39/hr + 5.75 night shift differential with 3.5 years exp). I know that I don't want to stay working as a staff RN. I am hoping to make at least what I am currently as a new NP, maybe slightly less. I have spoken with a few NP's in my hospital who are still working as staff RN's because they make more here than as NP's. (However, they also have been RN's a long time) I know the average salaries for FNP's and I know it can be highly variable depending on where you live, but just to get some real life input, what was your first FNP salary/wage and how many hours did you work a week?

Yes, it is about 70,000, which is quite a bit. I have looked at other DNP programs and some are similar in cost. 50,000-70,0000. I don't know about the APH, but the FNP track takes about 3 years if going full time including summers. I will probably go part-time and plan to finish it in about 4 years. I don't think I could afford full time anyway. I haven't heard from anyone who has attended WSU's DNP yet. When school costs that much you have to consider the salary you will get at the end. I don't want to end up with so much debt that I haven't gotten any further ahead financially. I should have investigated this further. I didn't really add it all up before I applied to the program. Congratulations on your acceptance by the way.

Hello all, I was just accepted to WSU's FNP program which I am excited about. However, I am worried that it may not be as clinically focused as I had thought. After perusing the course listing for the FNP, I can see that some of the courses do not look like they would be particularly useful to me as a clinician. The school is also expensive which makes me more nervous. I don't want to spend a lot of money when I don't feel like some of the courses are worth it. I am wondering if anyone knows more about the program, or even better, has first hand experience with it. If so, I would like to hear your thoughts about your experience, good or bad. Do you feel that it has prepared you well for working as a nurse practitioner? Any information at all is appreciated. I guess I just need something to ease my nerves about going back to school.

In my opinion you did the right thing. The child had no s/s of serious head injury, besides kids get hurt or hit their heads all the time and are fine (which in this case he was). CT scans for every time a kid smacked their head would be expensive and wasteful. The child is old enough to be able to describe symptoms to you. You tried calling the number that was on file and left a message. It is the mother's responsibility to make sure that is up to date, not yours. The mother was probably just shaken up a bit because her son had some swelling around the injury and wanted to take it out on someone, which unfortunately ended up being you. It also sounds like she may be embellishing her story about hospital staff being appalled at the care he recieved. Asking him to tell the story may have helped you get a better idea of what happened. I would have agreed with your nursing judgement though. That is pretty much what I would have done. I wouldn't sweat it. You made the right decision, it's just that the mom had to vent and you were the unlucky target. Hopefully that helps with your situation. Good luck

Thank you for the info. That at least gives me an idea about what to expect in the future. I will keep trying and hopefully land a hospital job soon. When I first started applying I was told that work experience in a skilled nursing facility would still count, but it had to be reviewed on a case by case basis. Now only acute care experience qualifies, (at least that is my understanding of the current situation with the AF) Thanks again for the replies.

Although this is not a first choice for many people out there. I would recommend applying for jobs in SNF. It does not pay quite as well as a hospital job, but it will be better than going back to whatever job you were doing before nursing. You still get to practice nursing skills in a SNF and will be getting good experience. I graduated last year and when I couldn't find hospital work I started looking for jobs at SNF. I found one in the first week. I have gained some good experience while working there. In the SNF that I work at they have a rehab unit with physical/occupational therapists working with pts in the gym. The facility accepts all kinds of pts. We do a lot of wound care and I have learned how to do wound VAC's and ostomy care. We still do IV abx, PICC line dressings, foley caths, PEG tubes, occassionally blood draws or IV insertion, lots and lots of pills, you collaborate with the MD more on pt care. I believe you do have more autonomy with the care of the pts, because the MD is not there all the time or even every day. You do have a higher pt load than in a hospital, but they are all sub acute or long term residents. You still see a lot of different issues with pts. They come from the hospital with a COPD exacerbation, pneumonia, cellulitis, hip or knee surgeries, stroke victims, post CABG, wound VAC's, etc. You treat all of these conditions while working at the SNF, so if you are not able to find a job at a hospital, don't turn your nose up at skilled nursing facilities. It is not ideal, but it is still good experience and you get paid fairly well. Once you have more experience you can start applying for hospital jobs. It is tough to find acute care jobs or to get you first choice, but there are other options that I think can help prepare you for acute care. If you check out the nursing facilities and see what kind of pts they accept before applying you might be able to find one that gives you the opportunity to experience a lot of different illnesses and get you prepped for acute care. Hopefully this can help someone who is looking for work and not finding what they want. The jobs are out there, they just may not be the one you want first, but you can still get good nursing experience.

Hey everybody, I'm brand new to this forum, so sorry if I am repeating something that has been said before. Anyway, I graduated Jun 2010 from my nursing program. After graduation and passing my boards I started applying for air force nursing. My recruiter was retiring at the end of the year, but he helped me get through a lot of the process. I filled out the entire application he gave me turned back in, went through MEPS and got medically cleared for service. I was told after MEPS that board meeting for new grads was pushed back until spring of this year. In the meantime I got a job at a SNF because I wasn't finding work at hospitals anywhere. He retired at the end of december and I called the recruiter office in Feb of this year. The new recruiter told me that the air force was not accepting new grads for this year and that I needed to have a year of acute care experience before I could even attempt to apply. The recruiter was very brief and not helpful at all. That crushed my dreams and I decided to shelf those plans until I had some hospital experience. I have now worked over a year at my facility and I was perusing these forums and it sounds like the air force is still doing the NTP for new grads. Did I get shafted by my recruiter and could have applied or do I still have no chance until I have a year of acute care experience? Hopefully someone can answer my question. Has anyone else had this kind of experience with their recruiter? Is it too late for NTP for 2012? Thanks