cmbullins

It sounds like you have reviewed your career goals which is the first step in determining which program you should do. If you're looking for a role that's primarily outpatient, and deals with pediatrics to elderly, then FNP is probably the correct route. Furthermore, if you're interested in any urgent care or ED, then FNP is also the correct degree. This is primarily because the variety (peds-adults) is better covered in the FNP criculium). just because the FNP covers pediatrics, you don't have to see them when you graduate. You may chose a practice that only requires you to see adults, females, etc depending on the terms of your practice agreement. With all all that being said, the ACNP, now AGACNP is more favored for inpatient be uses of how the criculium is setup. You spend the majority of your time seeing the inpatient arena and the knowledge that goes with that. Not to say that FNP's don't practice inpatient, but their criculium doesn't provide as rich of an inpatient rotation. Furthermore, the consensus model doesn't really support FNP's practice for inpatient. This is the same for ACNPs outpatient. Typically ACNPs don't work in the outpatient setting unless they are in a specialty clinic. Again, it's all in what the criculium provides. At the end of the day there are no hard stops for most states saying no which program you gave to do at the moment. FNPs can do inpatient and ACNPs can do outpatient. However some states and institutions have starting aligning themselves with the consensus model and saying that the NP can only practice within the scope of their training, which is probably fair. As this happens many institutions pay for an Np to return and obtain the certification required for their role.