SopranoKris

I went to school to get a dual ACNP & FNP. We specifically trained for hospitalist, intensivist & ER. Yes, I'll be a hospitalist as a new grad. It's what I've trained for. I have a critical care RN background, which was a requirement of the program I attended. As a new grad, I won't be expected to just jump in without any training or orientation. Unfortunately, the residency/fellowship was cancelled this year due to the instructors being out on maternity leave. But I will still have a lengthy orientation since I'm a new grad. ?

The 2 main instructors for the residency will both be out on maternity leave at the same time. They cancelled it for this year.

I had an overall great experience at USA. I liked having the hands-on skills intensives on campus before starting FNP clinicals and again before ACNP clinicals. I was ready to hit the ground running when I started clinicals. My first day of ER clinicals I did suturing about 6 times that day. Thankfully, we did a lot of hands-on practice in both FNP & ACNP skills intensives so I was able to jump in a do it. I was able to do an intubation, a central line insertion and an art line insertion, as well as chest tube during my clincal rotations. I was well-prepared for boards and passed both FNP & ACNP easily when I was done with the program. I was hired on as a hospitalist NP and one of the things they liked during my interivew was how many clinical hours I had (1,100 versus 500-700 most new grads with single cert have). Good luck with your decision ?

Update: the residency program was cancelled. However, I was hired on as a hospitalist NP and will start Sept. 1st. I'm so excited. I wanted either ER or hospitalist and I'm thankful I get to start out in one of my top choices. I was also able to get the salary I wanted and excellent PTO/benefits. Can't wait to start ?

I have taken both the FNP & ACNP exams (ANCC). For FNP, I did the Fitzgerald 2-day online live review and felt it was worth every penny. I was well-prepared for boards and passed easily. Just follow the lectures with your workbook and everything you need to know is there. I did Barkley's 2-day online review for ACNP. I felt the material was a bit dry since it wasn't a live course where I could interact, like with Fitzgerald. However, the information was spot-on. Everything we covered was on ANCC. I also highly recommend the Barkley's DRT practice exams. You get 2 attempts for the exam. Take the test cold, no prep. It will give you a print out of your weak & strong areas. Use that as a guide to study. Focus on your weak areas. No need to study what you already know! I felt this was extremely useful. When I took the DRT exam the 2nd time, I passed all categories. My board exams were a breeze after preparing this way. A few days before the FNP, I watched quite a few Cohen Review videos on Youtube. I found her information to be helpful. I also recommend the Youtube channel Dirty Medicine. His channel is geared towards USMLE test takers, but many of the concepts are the same. His mnemonics for remembering diabetes medications and anemias are fantastic! Good luck with boards ?

I'm a dually certified ACNP/FNP. My goal is to eventually work in the ER. I have the opportunity to do a residency program at my hospital that covers multiple specialties: ER, ICU, trauma, nephrology, cardiology, orthopedics, neurology, infectious disease, endocrine, heme/onc, and palliative care. Pros: it's a full fellowship program with classroom instruction, rounds with teaching physicians in each specialty, exposure to all the departments in the hospital, excellent learning opportunity, chance to gain more confidence in diagnosis, procedures, etc. Cons: the pay is "meh" compared to the workload, no time off during the program, geared for MDs/DOs (but they do take NPs/PAs), doesn't start until November (a little over 7 months from now). For those who are current acute care (hospitalist or ER) NPs, do you think doing a fellowship as a new grad is necessary? Or do you feel that going right into the specialty I want (ER) would be a better route? I would love to hear opinions as I like to weigh all the pros and cons before making a big decision. I have until mid-April to make a decision. Let me hear your opinions ?

I would suggest joining the individual FB groups for each specific course. They let you in about 2 weeks before the semester starts. Then you'll be able to work with others on prepping study guides and sharing tips. The FB groups for the 3 Ps are definitely worth it (e.g. NU 545, NU 578, NU 518). If you join one of the main FB groups for USA NPs, they'll usually give the links to the private groups for each course.

Good luck to you as you go through the program. Just keep yourself organized and set aside time to work on your assignments regularly, as well as study time, and you'll be fine. The biggest part of it is the voluminous amount of studying you have to do. There are great Youtube videos by Dirty Medicine (made for MD students, but very helpful for NP). They give you great mnemonics & visuals that help you retain the info. Highly recommend looking up their videos if you have a tricky concept to remember. Loved the patho & pharm they had. Incredibly helpful. ?

It is really dependent on the patient population you want to serve when you're an NP. Those with more limited scope (e.g. Adult-Gero, WHNP, etc.) are very niche specialties. If that is solely your focus and all you wish to do, then by all means, go for it. No use wasting your time learning peds or other stuff that isn't relevant to your chosen specialty. Having said that, just keep in mind that you can't really change your mind later and switch specialties, unless you want to fork over a lot of money in tuition/student loans to get another specialty. What is your current RN specialty? Is this the population you want to work with? Do you just like the "idea" of a certain specialty but have never experienced it first hand? You might want to pick up some shifts on a unit that has your specialty to make sure its what you really want. Or at least job shadow, if you can't pick up shifts in that specialty. Check the job listings in your area to see what seems to be the prevailing certification they're seeking. Good luck with your decision ?

I'm a USA graduate (dual role ACNP/FNP). Summer semester is typically your non-clinical courses. I would avoid doing Pathophysiology or Pharmacology in the Summer as those are very intense classes, even with a full 16 week semester. NU 607 (Underpinnings aka Nursing Theory) & 610 (Leadership/Policy) would be good Summer courses. Not sure which track you're in. Your assigned academic advisor will e-mail you a complete schedule of the courses you need to register for and the exact order they must be taken in. You typically don't hear much until about 6 weeks before the semester starts, so keep that in mind. You can always e-mail your academic advisor or e-mail the track coordinator for your program with questions.

Then you would apply for the RN to MSN or RN to DNP program in the specialty track you wish (e.g. FNP, ACNP, etc.) You can directly contact Brea Mosley in the Graduate Nursing Advising Office for more information about the RN-MSN Pathway for RN's with a Non-Nursing Bachelor Degree: [email protected] or 251/445-9400.

If you have a non-nursing bachelor's degree, University of South Alabama has both the RN to MSN FNP or RN to DNP FNP program. https://www.southalabama.edu/colleges/con/MSN/rnmsn_nonnursing.html If you only have your ADN but no BSN or bachelor's in another field, they do have an online RN to BSN and then you can transition to FNP. https://www.southalabama.edu/colleges/con/BSN/rntobsn.html

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I have experience with both schools. I finished my BSN with Chamberlain because my employer had a tuition discount deal with Chamberlain. I originally started my FNP with them because I had a good experience with the BSN. The FNP experience was NOTHING like my BSN experience. They kept making changes to the program with no notification of changes. The final straw came when I was taking my last 2 courses before clinicals started. They changed to a databank of questions, instead of exams the instructors created themselves. Unfortunately, the material in the databank gave us exam questions that we hadn't been assigned to study. The entire class failed the exam. Instead of having us re-take the exam with appropriate questions, or grading on a curve due to THEIR error, they wouldn't budge and said they would "make sure" no one failed the class. Umm, no! We didn't learn anything at all. (This was an epidemiology & stats class). I decided to drop the course before the drop date deadline because I didn't want to ruin my GPA. I e-mailed my instructor to inform her of my withdrawal. The school then REFUSED to refund my money for the course because they considered the e-mail to my instructor as "participation in the course" after the drop date. Total BS! There are class action lawsuits against the parent company who owns Chamberlain (Ad Talem Global). None of my credits transferred elsewhere. I wasted so much time & money. Caveat emptor. I ended up transferring to University of South Alabama and got accepted into the Dual Role ACNP/FNP program, which is what I should have done from the get-go. I had a great experience there. All courses were online. We did have to go to campus twice during the program for hands-on skills intensives before FNP clinicals and again before ACNP clinicals. It is an actual brick & mortar school and has an excellent reputation in the gulf coast area. I had difficulty with my clinical sites getting cancelled in my state due to COVID. The school worked with me and helped me get set up with preceptors in other states so I could finish the program. While that did require me to travel to finish, I had fantastic preceptors and an incredible clinical experience in the ICU & ER. I definitely recommend USA to anyone considering them. I will never recommend Chamberlain's FNP program. Their BSN program was good, but their FNP program is a degree mill and they'll take anyone with a pulse and a promissory note.

There shouldn't be any. Because if they didn't require any at all, you would be so incredibly lost & confused in your program. You need to put in the time at the bedside in the hospital as an RN and get critical care experience before attempting the ACNP. Any program worth their salt is going to require critical care experience before being accepted.