alexamasan

Will be graduating soon, will looking for a job in primary care after I pass my boards. Wondering if you all had advice on how to go about looking for a job?

That's awesome, I hope to read Robbin's Pathology eventually as well.

For NP School, we had Buttaro Primary Care, did any of you read that in your programs? I am wondering how comparable it is to Cecil's Essentials of Internal Medicine. If any of you read Cecil's Essentials, how did it compare to your NP texts if you remember?

I am a nurse practitioner student and one thing I really want to do is to go through a cadaver lab. My nursing school and NP school has zero cadaver opportunities. Everyone I know who had the opportunity said it was really helpful to visualize the 3D image of the human body and tissues. Thankfully, there is one college with a medical school I live close to that offers graduate level gross anatomy classes that include a cadaver lab. They are usually reserved for students in a premed postbacc program, but they allow you to take them as a non-degree student if space is available. The school is about an hour away and I am strongly considering actually taking a semester off of NP school so that I could do this. I am really excited just thinking about it. Have any of you had the opportunity to participate in a cadaver lab? What did you think?

Thanks for all the responses, a natural follow up question would be what should an NP be doing to improve their clinical skills to be as good as an MD/DO?

I remember years ago that there was all this talk about when they were beginning to really push for DNPs in the late 2000's and early 2010's, there was talk about a certification exam that would be similar to the physician USLME step 3. There were debates within nursing about whether we should have the exam or not. The National Board of Medical Examiners NBME who runs the USLME was supposedly involved in making this test. Now when you google this, nothing comes up, just old articles from during this time frame. I guess the effort died?

Perhaps after years (or decades) of practice, do you think an NP can be as skilled in providing primary care as an MD? Or will the NP forever be lacking something for not going to medical school?

Is there any advantage that AGNP has over an FNP. I'm talking specifically about outpatient care (not an ACAGNP). It seems to me that when it comes out outpatient or primary care, FNP just seems the objectively better option. If you want to work with only adults, then I can understand, but FNP at least gives you more opportunities if you want to change your targeted population later on.

Hey there, thanks for sharing! Nursing in or of itself will not being you closer or farther away from God. God can use your profession (whatever it is), to advance the Kingdom, but your profession will not be the source of your spirituality. If you have not yet made a connection to God, the bible says there is only one thing that will do that, and that thing is The Gospel. Do you think you are a good person? In order to answer that, we will measure up to God's law as the standard. Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything, even if it was small or a music file from the internet? Have you used God's name in a cuss word? Have you ever lusted after anyone at all? Have you ever felt hatred toward anyone ever? If even you did one of these things just once, you are a sinner. You did not just sin toward the person you lied to or hated, you also sinned toward God himself for breaking his law. I don't want you to feel like I'm putting you down here, because I myself am guilty of all of these things and more. So what do we deserve for breaking his law? Just like any criminal, there is a crime and punishment. Our punishment for our crimes will be an eternal punishment that we justly deserve for sinning against our creator and standard for goodness. Nothing we do, no matter how many good deeds, will erase the evil we have done in the past and the evil in our hearts that has us continue to sin in the future. Even though God can fairly punish you for your sins, he is also loves and cares about you and has allowed you to live up to this point. In a way to fulfill the punishment that you deserve, God entered into his own creation as Jesus Christ and he lived a perfect life, never sinning and always acting righteously. He's the most innocent person who ever lived, he did not deserve any punishment for his life, and yet he freely gave his life to die on a cross to take on the punishment that you deserved to receive. Far beyond the physical pain of crucifixion, he also experienced God's full wrath and fury while he was on that cross, a wrath and fury that should have be sent down upon you! Jesus sacrificed himself for you and the Father accepted Jesus as a substitute and he proved this by raising Jesus back to life. Jesus died for those who believe in him. If you realize that you are a sinner and you are under God's wrath, turn to Jesus. Have faith that he took the punishment for your sins for you. If you truly believe that (not just understanding it, but believe it and commit your life to it), then the Holy Spirit will change your heart. The spirit will change you in such a way that make you turn from your sin, to push it away, to hate your sin, and instead pursue Jesus and a life living according to his will for you. This is the Gospel, do you believe it? Will you submit your life to Jesus? Tell us what you think.

I work on a surgical floor (with occasional medical patients), for a bout 2.5 years now and there are many colleagues on my floor whom I admire very much. They seem to know so much about everything, able to talk to physicians, PA's, NP's on their level about possible causes for a patients symptoms, possible treatments. They know what s/s to look out for so many conditions patients come in with. They know medications seemingly inside and out. I don't at all feel inadequate at my job and I feel like I provide safe and competent care to my patients. But some of my colleagues are on a whole other level, it's like they are former ICU nurses that are now working on the surgical floor. How do I become like that? Are there any resources you guys recommend I study? I'm sure experience has a lot to do with it since they have seen so much over the years (they have been nurses for a while), but I don't want to be passive about my improvement as a clinician. How should I go about improving and learning?

Hey everybody, I am an RN on a Med/Surg floor working there for about 3 years. I've been thinking of eventually pursuing to become an Adult-Gerontology NP to work in primary care (I've thought about FNP, but I really have no interest in caring for kids or ob/gyn related work). I feel I'm more interested in primary care than acute care personally. All that being said, I wonder if I should have some ICU experience if I plan on making the plunge for NP school. The main thing that concerns me is all the talk I hear around the forum about how NP school is usually grossly inadequate to prepare you to be an NP. I feel that maybe the ICU would give me experience that will help with the rest of my career. On the other hand, if I do end up going into primary care, maybe ICU wouldn't be as applicable as I think it would be. There's also PA school and the fact that they can switch specialties and seem to have superior education is also something on the back of my mind.

I really appreciate the quick replies. I feel very fortunate for my job because I hear all the time of nurses who dread going to work. I like the patient population mainly because I can have conversations with them, have a sense of humor, and make them laugh. I can encourage them if they are feeling nervous about their surgery outcomes and help them stay positive. I feel that is a strength of mine as evidenced by many feedback letters about my care from patients. I float to other units probably every 1-2 months. On our medical floor, there are many patients who are not very sick, and I can be the same way with them. But for the other patients who are much more acute and most of the patients on the PCU and CCU, I can't really converse with them because they are usually not very responsive or are not in the mood to really have cheerful conversation. I still provide quality care for them, but I feel most at home in my own unit. And I agree that a contributing factor is due to the workplace, not really the specialty itself. I don't really have a desire going to another surgical floor at a different hospital in fear of having an unhealthy work environment. Finding out how much we get paid compared to other hospitals in the same area has been difficult. Our HR has always told us they do a "market analysis" to make sure our pay is competitive, but whenever asked for actual data of how much specific hospitals pay, they say they'll send out an email that never comes or will give us the wrong info (such as sending info about average nursing pay in the entire US, not local data). I work in the Northern Virginia area, outside of DC. I guess one thing I have to deal with is that because my experience is limited at this time, it's hard for me to know what other types of specialties I would find enjoyable. An idea that's been bouncing around is becoming an NP and do primary care, but still trying to weigh other options. EDIT: KelRN215, when you say I sound settled in my nursing career, I'm not sure what you mean. Is that a good thing or bad thing?

I'm 29 y/o and I've been working as an RN on a surgical floor for a little over 2 years. This has been my first and only nursing job since graduating. I actually really do like my job. I think the work environment is healthy, my bosses are very supportive and helpful, and I love the patient population. I actually can see myself working in this position for a long time. The only problem is that it doesn't pay well enough and for financial reasons alone, I'm going to eventually leave this job that I feel very grateful for. In my current position, there are ways to move up that come with pay increases, and I'm working through that right now. However, even once I high the "highest level," the pay really isn't enough for what I'm looking for. The pay is probably the most common complaint among nurses on my floor. I love direct patient care and I love talking and conversing with my patients. That's probably what I like the most about my job. I need help on how to go about finding other possible nursing specialties and careers that I should look into for when I eventually leave. Thanks

I just finished my second week on my own after orientation on the surgical floor. Definitely certain days are better than others. I'm feel I'm starting to get depressed from my work. There's just so much I don't know and I don't know what I don't know until someone points out to me that I forgot to do something or I should have done something a certain way. I leave work feeling really bad. Not to mention I'm still working on time management and I leave work really late. Today is my day off and I had just received a phone call about why I didn't put in a verbal med order into the computer (I had no idea was suppose do that, I was in the room when the Doctor was talking about the order, but he did not ask me to put it in for him, so I just assumed he would do it himself; now I'm afraid of a tongue-lashing when I come in for work next time). My determination is to learn from mistakes and to learn more about our basic general protocols of what to due for certain types of patients so I at least won't miss basic stuff. However, I just feel really anxious and depressed about work now.

I just had my first night on my own after orientation. I was completely overwhelmed and I feel pretty depressed. I'm happy to hear that this gets better over time, my goal is to evaluate how I did the previous shift and find a different way of doing things to try and make the next shift better.