DrAres

You should post your question in the Nurse Educator specialty thread - this one is the Clinical Nurse Specialist.

CNS programs are organized by patient populations (e.g. adult-gerontology, pediatric) and there are no specific specializations for home health. As someone who owns a home care agency, why do you think CNS education would be helpful for the agency? I definitely see how the FNP education would not be a good fit. CNS employment is mostly in hospitals (per the national CNS census) and thus that is where the preceptors are located. You'd need to do your clinical in acute care and that doesn't seem to fit your situation. Have you considered the Leadership or Administration programs?

In California to receive state funding via California Children's Services, the NICU and PICUs must have a CNS. Fortunately, CNSs in CA have been active in influencing these regulations. See the latest effort on page 99 of Neonatology Today when the state decided that the role could be filled by a "Neonatal Educator," NNP, or CNS https://www.neonatologytoday.net/newsletters/nt-mar21.pdf So - if you want to move to sunny CA you can probably get a Neonatal CNS position! I did a research study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29419579/ of CNS students as they transitioned into practice. This study revealed that many grads assumed non-CNS titled positions. Some said they were working as a CNS (without the title) but others gave job titles of: Stroke Coordinator, Geriatric Care Coordinator, Advanced Nurse Clinician, Trauma Coordinator, Clinical Educator, etc.

Yes I have had my PhD loans forgiven via the NFLP. I had a faculty job before taking the loans, so my situation is different than yours. Nurse Educators are in demand but your background and education has to fit with the program needs and type of academic setting. For example, if you want to teach ADN level at a community college and have solid acute care experience, the job search will be fairly easy. I can't determine from your online information if the 1 year experience is as an FNP or as an RN. If the latter, then the search for a faculty position will be very difficult. A new grad DNP-FNP would not be hired to teach FNP students without at least 2 years of FNP experience (full-time). Schools are looking to match your clinical expertise with the courses in their curriculum. Also, the academic positions at BSN or higher programs will likely involve scholarship (research/EBP, presenting at conferences, and publishing). If you have not done this, it may be difficult to be hired. So, my advice is to be sure that you take your DNP project all the way through the dissemination phase and present the work at a conference and work with your faculty to get the project into a journal morificecript to submit.

It takes a lot of courses to elevate the GPA. Most programs that I know of look at the degree GPA and do not consider post-bachelor's courses into that GPA. @jax18_mco Have you looked at the US News & World Report rankings for Best Online Master's in Nursing programs and looked further down the list? Programs 30-50 places down are still great programs. There is a faculty shortage, so depending on the type of academic setting there may be less concern about where your degree is from. You want to be competent in the academic role, so look for a respected regional school as opposed to a national powerhouse. Also, there is nothing wrong with coming into a program on probation. Grab it if the program is a good fit for you. Last, look closely at the clinical preceptorships to be sure you will have enough time and practice to develop educator competencies in order to have a easier transition to the academic role (the workload is hefty).

I'm not sure about the specific history of why the Psych/Mental Health APRNs decided to focus on NP over CNS. There seemed to be a national decision, though controversial, that was made within the specialty. I hope others in this specialty can weigh in on what precisely happened. In terms of the certification exam - there are a number of CNS populations that have no exams (Women's/Gender Health, Family). The key seems to be that the certification exams are a business proposition. They exist to make money. If there are too few people coming out of the educational programs then the certification body can't recoup their expenses to create an exam.

Study.com is the provider of the education but the American Council on Education (ACE) is the body that grants the college credit and provides the transcript (a badge now). I don't know if the BRN will accept the ACE credit or not. That is something you'd need to get a read on from them. If you get an answer, come back and let us know.

Notification of the multiple orientation sessions occurs after the ADN student applies. It's not an information session, rather an orientation to the program, online library, online classroom, etc. We've received 400+ applications this year so it's pretty crazy getting everything processed. Every course has discussion boards and other varied assignments (quizzes, papers, journal entries, PowerPoint presentations). The number and type of assignments are different based on the number of units and subject matter. If this is your first Summer, you won't be taking the Health Assessment courses (2nd Summer students only). By Summer 2022 we will be back to normal and the Lab will be on-campus, live, hands-on!

@Guest123456789 @Jackeeee I'm affiliated with CSUDH and can provide some perspective. I'm sorry there has been trouble communicating with the department - the pandemic has created some issues with phones. The nursing webpage has a link for Faculty/Staff so you can get direct e-mails of the specific people you want to communicate with. The first year as a new graduate is very demanding. Not only will you be in more classes (at the hospital/agency) but you'll also be learning on the job. Working full-time and holding a full-time 12 unit load of online courses is possible, but most students don't do this. If full-time academically, students usually work only part-time. The CSUDH program is structured such that you can vary the number of classes you take. You might want to start out full-time while you're studying for NCLEX and job hunting OR you may already have a good job lined up and then you could enroll part-time (2 courses). The following semester you can adjust up or down. The thing is that online learning takes a lot of time because you need to read and type rather than listen and talk. The online modality is flexible but not quick or easy. Last, you'll want to keep your GPA up to position you well for graduate school later. So, my advice is to go slow and enjoy the journey to really learn at the next level.

@pandaeyes have you attended the orientation session? You questions could be answered there. The Health Assessment Lab is typically done on campus, but due to the pandemic we have been using Zoom. In the Lab student typically practice exam skills (on a clothed human). If you'd like to know more, e-mail the BSN Summer Fast Track Coordinator. The clinical course near the end of the program is Community Health. This includes the public health clinical - an important benefit of this program because to work as a Public Health Nurse, you must obtain a certificate to practice from CA. The course description is: BSN 423 - Community-Based Nursing Role Performance (2 units) Prerequisites: BSN 302, BSN 346, BSN 382, BSN 381, and BSN 422 (BSN 422 may be concurrent enrollment). Provides an opportunity for application of the knowledge and the skills of the community-based nurse in a community setting. Requires 90 hours of clinical practice with a preceptor for the Public Health Nurse Certificate.

By the time you sort this out, quite a bit of time may elapse. You may want to consider taking the Sociology 101 course at Study.com (for college credit). https://study.com/academy/course/sociology-course.html This is not a university, but a education provider. Certain courses are approved for college credit through ACE. The California State University campus I teach at accepts ACE credit and numerous nursing students have taken pre-requiste courses for our program (such as Patho, Statistics). The classes are very reasonable and the extra transcript cost is also low. The course is online and self-paced. While this isn't what you want to hear, it's probably the fastest solution.

I would say the main difference is that the work of the Ped CNS involves care for the patient (direct but mostly indirect via consultation) as a clinical expert, support for nurses, and engagement with the organization. In contrast the Ped Acute Care NP focus is 1:1 direct patient care with billing for that care. The NPs are often employed by the physician medical group. Ped Primary Care NPs work in ambulatory care settings. Take a look at the competencies for each role (posted on the NACNS website and NONPF website) and then interview nurses in both roles to determine what a "day in the life" of that role looks like. Oregon has state laws that make online education there difficult. Application fees are stiff. You may find that online programs are not able to serve you in OR so look at your in-state school options.

Most discussions of exam prep for CNS grads have focused on the Mometrix products. The grads from our program that take the AACN typically are using CCRN prep books (to get the feel for the style of questions), Synergy Model, and Mometrix. I suppose that acute care NP prep tools could be useful as well.

Anay3l1- As a newly admitted student you won't be in clinical for another year, so likely the pressing problems we are experiencing now won't exist. The challenges related to clinical placement are that sites have closed to students. It doesn't matter if the school or the student seeks the placement, if the agency is banning all students. Fortunately, we're seeing sites for FNPs are opening up. All schools that have online programs find it difficult to take full responsibility for placing students in preceptorships. The reality is that these are not local clinical rotations with 8-10 students, they are 1:1 situations that take place all over the state. It is unrealistic for the school to have close relationships with NPs in every community state-wide. That said, we have hundreds of clinical affiliation agreements in place at any given time. We have a collaborative placement process where we work with students to find placement. Ultimately the school will coordinate a placement within 100 miles from the student's residence. However, the preferred situation is for students, who know the local community and the medical practices that they might want to work in the future, to work their contacts and networks in the community to locate a place to precept. Students that are successful in this endeavor are often the first to receive job offers and the students that are more passive take a long time to become employed as an NP.

I'm a graduate of CSUDH but also faculty. I'm not sure when NurseGina17 attended, but there is no math test. There is a graduation writing requirement, which all of the CSU schools have, but it can be done via essay with a proctor. Yes there is a weekend health assessment lab. The clinical courses with preceptors have been reduced to 2 - leadership/management and community health. Preceptors for the leadership are quite easy to find as typically there is a qualified BSN prepared manager in your workplace that could serve as your preceptor. The Community Health involves either a public health nurse or school nurse and that can be more difficult to arrange. I encourage you to look at the curriculum to see what looks most interesting and to consider how courses are delivered and if that suits you.