_iamkel

That's great!! Congrats! One step closer to your dream!

Awesome input, thanks!

I work between 16-24 hours a week. If I have tests or a busy schedule one week I will take off that entire week to prepare for what is going on. I find that extremely doable in regards to being able to afford my bills. My bills include: Car payment, insurance, rent (which isn't much- just $200 a month to my parents), gas, cell phone and any extra expenses such as copays, food, hanging out, groceries, ect. I take out loans for my tuition. But, I get a really great scholarship for my academic performance plus some grants. I pay for books, scrubs and clinical supplies out of pocket (this is most expensive when you first begin nursing school because you have to fork out all of this money up front, it gets better.) Look online for scholarships that you can apply for. People and companies are giving money to nursing students left and right! You just have to be motivated to search for them and do the work to apply for them. My advice to you is to work while you are in school. If others can do it, so can you! Don't underestimate yourself. 😉

When I do my clinical rotations I try to find PAs and NPs around the hospital to pick their brain. Most of the NPs said that they wanted to be in that profession because they are more involved with the patient whereas PAs are more involved with curing an illness, like you said. Idk- this is just what I gathered from those in the field! Maybe the comment about most people prefer NPs over PAs would be for that exact reason. NPs are more involved with the patient. Any thoughts about that? I think the reason I would want to be a NP over a PA would be because I am in fact going to nursing school because I want to be a nurse. With other threads that I am on and the constant research I have been doing I really think NNP is the way for me to go. Still weighing out the pros and cons. Thanks for everyone input, everything helps! 😄

This absolutely helps! Thank you so much for all of the information. This is really helping me decide what I want to do and how I want to do it. It's awesome talking to someone who has done exactly what you want to do!

The institution said I could begin working towards the program asap post passing the NCLEX...

How would you recommend that I go about furthering my education to be a NNP? My plan was to graduate nursing school in May 2016 and begin the 18 core credit masters program, right away, while working as a nurse (hopefully in NICU level 3). And then transition into the 18 credit NNP program when it applies. Or I could work as a nurse for 2 years and then begin all of my graduate education after that (NOT ideal). I just want to get my education out of the way in a timely manner. I don't want to rush through school but, I'm 24 years old. I just don't want to still be in school when I'm 30 (NO offense to anyone going back to school in their 30's- I'm totally for it!). I have plans for a family and I'm definitely the type of person that needs to plan. 😊

Forgot to mention, I am currently a junior in nursing school!

This is a great post. Thanks for showing me this thread. Maybe someone can help me to understand something: I was told that for me to go through the NNP program I would need 2 years experience as a nurse in a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit. I couldn't imagine being a NNP without having that experience. I would need to get through 18 credits of "core classes" and then another 18 credits once I am in the NNP program. Upon graduating I will have a total of 36 credits and they told me I can get this done in 2 years. My question is, how will I get this done in 2 years if I need to have 2 years experience as well? Let me know if I need to be more clear with my question!

I'm leaning towards NP mainly because a lot of people say they prefer NPs over PAs. Thanks for the advice and support. I appreciate it.

Seriously! All I wanted was some advice on my future, not my grammar! Haha. Oh well, some people just worry about the little things. Not me! :]

No problem! I appreciate you catching my mistake. I was just looking for advice on the main topic of conversation, not my grammar. That's all. Totally appreciate your correction though! I'll be more aware. :]

Thanks so much!

One of the schools I was speaking with told me that I will need to have 2 years of experience in a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit before I would be able to move into the NNP program. My plan would be to work to get that experience and begin to take the core credits. Sounds like a logical way to do it to me.

Thanks so much for all of the great information. I have been in touch with a few different schools of my choice and they also basically told me that I still have time to decide what I wanted to do.

Hum, you must not have an iPhone to experience autocorrect. However, I asked for advice on the difference between the two professions, not on my application. However, when I need advice on my application I will certainly ask you! Thank you! :]

Thanks for the heads up! I'll watch how I word that then

I'm not sure I follow your comment "lots of pa schools would chuck your application for that." Why wouldn't I say "Physicians Assistant" if that is indeed what the title is called?

I'm in my junior year of nursing school and I am set on furthering my education to either be a PA or NP. Ideally, I would like to work with baby's. Possibly a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner. However, I would be happy being a Ped PA. What is everyone's opinion on being a NP versus a PA in regards to working with baby's?

If you crush all meds together and give them all at once and your patient has a life threatening reaction, how will you know which medication did it? Better yet, how will you know which antidote to give if there are multiple options given the medication you administered. I guess that's why there are policies that say to do it separately. Time consuming, yes. The struggle is real!

Pharm is tough. I am a junior nursing student and I had Pharm last semester. I passed with an A and I am now a tutor at my school for the subject. My first piece of advice for you is to not stress out. I know, it's way easier said than done. But, you need to be able to be in the moment when you are studying/learning pharmacology and not worry about anything else. Figure out your learning style. I'm the type of student where I sit in class, listen to a lecture and I absorb the information. The key to be able to have the information stick is to go over everything you just learned right after class. That is when I move the information from my short term memory to my long term memory. Waiting a few days to look at the information you learned today in class isn't going to help you remember stuff. I understand after a Pharm lecture you are completely drained. But, to get where you want to be you have to discipline yourself. Don't get yourself tied up in memorizing all of the different specific drugs. Learn the category of the drug first. For example, cardiac drugs- know what you would use a calcium channel blocker for, know the adverse effects, the most important information about this category of drugs and then generally know the most common drugs in the category. Your Pharm professors shouldn't really be testing you by asking which drug goes with which category. They will, but most of your questions will be along the lines of you needing to know that when you give that calcium channel blocker what could possibly go wrong, what should you be looking for in regards to therapeutic effect, are there any indications of using this drug in a certain patient. Therefore, focus your studying on being a safe nurse. Knowing the drugs will come with practice- in your clinical. When you have a patient make sure you look up all of their medications and start to familiarize yourself with what the drug is, what it does and it's indications and adverse effects. Outlining really helped me for Pharm. A lot of it is memorization. Use youtube to help you clarify how the different category of drugs work. Spend a lot of time with this subject. When I took my very first test for Pharm I went into it thinking I didn't know anything. I literally thought I was going to have no idea what I was doing. A good 90% of the test was focused on safety when administering medications, looking for adverse effects for drugs such as calcium channel blockers (not a specific drug).. and I ended up getting a 93 on the test I knew nothing about because I made sure that I focused my studying on safety. All of my friends who didn't do so well said that they focused more on memorizing specific drugs and not so much knowing what the category of the drug did. I hope this helps!

I had the job before I took the test. My pay went up once I passed the test. The position is called a patient care technician for the area I live. The test may differ from yours. I'm not really sure! But, my test just had basic math plus converting. For example.. If you measure urine output in ounces, you would have to convert that to milliliters. Therefore, you would have to know the conversation factor 1oz=30mL and then perform basic math skills to figure out your answer. Reading skills weren't so much on my test. It was more or so just a question with multiple choice answers. The questions were based upon common sense really. Some of them were book questions but not a lot of them! I'm a junior nursing student so I kinda knew what I was doing going into it since I've been studying nursing. We had a practical test as well. We had to perform 5 out of 22 skills that were done in front of someone.

Everything is easy. I needed to know basic conversion factors. Reading is simple. They just want to make sure you know what you're doing to be sure patients are safe. Don't stress.

For fundamentals I bought the potter and perry fundamentals study guide- it really helps if you like to outline. There is a little hand book that you can get too called a guide to clinical component. It's a quick reference book for you to bring to clinical incase you need to look anything up. I use that too. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called, potter and perry makes it- it looks just like the fundamentals study guide. I'm also a visual learner so I made a "brain book" to help me visualize things to put everything together. If you go on Pinterest they have little pictures to help you remember things; for example, go on Pinterest and type in hypoxia. I just printed them out and put them all on big index cards and had them laminated and then hooked them all together with 2 rings. It's a quick reference. I'll keep you updated on other study books I find! Oh and do yourself a favor and invest in a nursing watch!!!! Don't wear any of your good ones. Go on allnurses.com for that. They aren't the cutest things but, they'll do!

They will give you a list. But, the essentials are probably, BP cuff, steth, and then you'll need your scrubs and possibly a lab coat depending on your school's curriculum (which your school will tell you where to go for them) and probably a certain color shoe. I recommend Dansko's. Love mine! You're going to eventually want a bag for clinical: but that can wait until you start. As for books: you should absolutely get Moby's guide to nursing diagnosis. And a drug book. They are pocket size and fit in your pockets. It will help you in clinical and writing care plans. It's basically my bible! There are also other good study books you should look up on amazon to help you with your classes. Hope this helps!