New RN, looking ahead; MPH?

Hello MandaRN94,

I am a BSN/RN trying to decide between going back to school for an MPH vs an MSN with a focus on public health. Can you tell me more about why you went back to school for the MSN option, and the difference in career options that either of those options would give you?

I appreciate any insight you can offer!

Hello Everyone,

Getting my BSN was THEEEE BEST decision I made in my professional career. It has opened up so many doors. I finished my BSN in August 2014. My public health contract position ended in October 2014 and I took a month vacation. I sat for my NCLEX in December 2014 and passed! I took the first offer on a medsurg floor in January 2015 and have been at the same hospital ever since. I just recently transferred to Labor and Delivery, after a year in medsurg. I have maintained a consulting-part-time job in public health and after that ended, I picked up a part-time job giving flu shots at corporate sites. Nursing has opened sooo many doors for me, especially since my main goal was to combine my public health and nursing degrees. It was a struggle finding jobs in public health. I would apply for 50 jobs and get maybe 4 call backs. Now I'm more careful in applying for jobs because more than likely, I will get a call back. :)

For all my fellow MPH'ers, just go ahead and go to nursing school. So many people discouraged me - family and friends told me - "don't do it...why not get another masters or phd...why do you want to start your career again at 28.. another bachelors is like going backwards." If I had listened to them, I would still be struggling with my direction in life.

Hello Everyone,

Getting my BSN was THEEEE BEST decision I made in my professional career. It has opened up so many doors. I finished my BSN in August 2014. My public health contract position ended in October 2014 and I took a month vacation. I sat for my NCLEX in December 2014 and passed! I took the first offer on a medsurg floor in January 2015 and have been at the same hospital ever since. I just recently transferred to Labor and Delivery, after a year in medsurg. I have maintained a consulting-part-time job in public health and after that ended, I picked up a part-time job giving flu shots at corporate sites. Nursing has opened sooo many doors for me, especially since my main goal was to combine my public health and nursing degrees. It was a struggle finding jobs in public health. I would apply for 50 jobs and get maybe 4 call backs. Now I'm more careful in applying for jobs because more than likely, I will get a call back. :)

For all my fellow MPH'ers, just go ahead and go to nursing school. So many people discouraged me - family and friends told me - "don't do it...why not get another masters or phd...why do you want to start your career again at 28.. another bachelors is like going backwards." If I had listened to them, I would still be struggling with my direction in life.

Awesome update! I was debating with myself to pursue mph or msw or BSN. I am interested in health education, healthy living, disease prevention. I gave been struggling with "going backwards" getting a second bsn ire moving ahead as suggested by family. Your post has truly motivated me. Do you recommend getting the MPH after the BSN? Or is it possible to get those public health jobs with just the BSN in your experience?

Awesome update! I was debating with myself to pursue mph or msw or BSN. I am interested in health education, healthy living, disease prevention. I gave been struggling with "going backwards" getting a second bsn ire moving ahead as suggested by family. Your post has truly motivated me. Do you recommend getting the MPH after the BSN? Or is it possible to get those public health jobs with just the BSN in your experience?

I would suggest getting the BSN first because you can get a variety of public health jobs with a nursing background. The MPH by itself is not as marketable and the earning potential will significantly rise when combining it with a clinical background.

I would suggest getting the BSN first because you can get a variety of public health jobs with a nursing background. The MPH by itself is not as marketable and the earning potential will significantly rise when combining it with a clinical background.

Thank you! This makes so much sense. I'm happy I decided too conduct a search regarding this topic before diving into an MPH. Ib just want to be able to work in my chosen field. I learned the hard way my first go around with my liberal arts BA LOL

Thank you! This makes so much sense. I'm happy I decided too conduct a search regarding this topic before diving into an MPH. Ib just want to be able to work in my chosen field. I learned the hard way my first go around with my liberal arts BA LOL

I understand! Nursing was a second career for me and just like a previous poster said, I received significantly more calls back after I finished my BSN than when I got my MPH.

Thank you! Happy you understand where I'm coming from.

Not sure if this fits entirely with this thread, but would you say that, if I already have a BSN, getting an MPH would open a lot more doors? I struggle with searching for "public health nurse" jobs to find that this is always equated with a nurse who does home visits. I am more interested in policy and education, but I have no experience in this. All 15 years of my nursing experience has been clinical (acute care and outpatient). I am wondering how difficult it will be to get out of this trajectory. I am considering the NP route, as this is the closest fit with my experience, but not, I'm afraid, with my interests. I'm also afraid that there are too many NPs being "produced." Sort of desperate for guidance! Thanks if you have any.

thank you everyone for all those comments. I'm sure i will fine the answer to my questions here. so I'm a experienced nurse trained in a french speaking country. I have a BSN and a MSN. I really want to get a MPH with a concentration in Maternal and Child health, but since I'm not licenced in US ( tried the NCLEX-RN 3 times and failed ) do you think it will be hard for me getting a job with my MPH?

please help and Thanks

(Edited to add this is in response to Wartocin's post, quoting didn't work in the initial attempt)

I think getting an MPH can open a lot of doors for you in public health, particularly if you want to move into management/supervisory positions or roles around program planning, development, and evaluation. However, there is probably a lot of variation in your local market too as to whether an MPH would be beneficial or not. Public health nurses where I am can do home visitation, which is generally for pregnant women, first time moms, children with special needs, or families with a case open in child welfare. They also work in clinics (family planning and immunizations for sure, but maybe also primary care depending), or doing communicable disease control activities like case interviews, contact tracing, etc. Some roles are more case management (HIV linkage to care and retention in care). Some roles are even more community based in nature, working with community groups to build coalitions and guide community action around specific health topics (early childhood obesity prevention, injury prevention, etc). In all these staff level roles in my health department, most of the nurses just have their BSN. There are some staff level nurses with their MPH degrees, but they aren't all necessarily using the skills that come with an MPH. Some RN-MPHs do, but not all.

If it helps, I am in the process of an MPH degree myself. I am not really interested in a management position at this early point in my career, but having this degree will open that door for me later on if I do decide to make that transition. What the degree will do for me (hopefully) is make me a more competitive candidate when I move to a new area or apply for fellowships with the CDC (Master's Degree

Full-Time Fellowship Opportunities | Public Health Fellowships | CDC) or US AID Global Health Fellows office (Global Health Fellows II | Global Health Fellows Program II). I want to go cool places and do cool things in my nursing career in public health, and for me, getting an MPH is the way to unlock that.

For you though, I think you can probably get a foot in the door with staff level public health RN positions with the experience you currently have. If you really want to go for an MPH, I will never say more education is a bad thing, but it really does depend on what you want to do with it and your local job market conditions.

Thanks you very much for all theset infos. More than anything I really want to get an MPH and I can see that I can do a lot with that degree.