Question? PA vs NP to work with healthy newborns in OB?

[siroisco]

Hi all,

I'm currently a working RN with my Associates and have been an ER nurse for 2 years. I've been searching and talking to NP's and PA's alike but am getting conflicting information and am unclear about which route I need to take to be able to get to the ultimate end result that I want which is to work as an advanced practitioner with generally healthy babies on a postpartum unit.

I was told that a PA can work anywhere an MD or DO can work and therefore when a pediatrician comes up to see the newborns after delivery then they can obviously hire a PA if they choose to. I also was told by an NP in the ER setting that it might be better for me to go to a Pediatric NP school which will save time and money but I'm not sure they would be hired on a unit like that... I know that neonatal NP's are used all the time in NICU, but I'm not really looking to working with terminally sick kids on vents in the NICU or with older children over age 5. (Generally, a pediatrician office)

Does anybody have any answers or any advice as to where I might be able to get some more information? I wouldn't even mind scrubbing and doing deliveries if I could do lady partsl deliveries and cesarean sections if that would be the majority of what the job entailed.

Thank you so much!

[siroisco]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I am doing my RN-BSN this Spring which I will obtain by December 2014.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Either. NNPs work with newborns, but often in the NICU setting. In our newborn nursery, we have a PA who is one of the attendings. At a smaller hospital I worked at which was a level 1/2 nursery (healthy newborns up to 34 weekers who needed temporary respiratory support, IV abx, bili lights, feeder/growers), we had NNPs and they were WONDERFUL.

Since you're already an RN, the easiest route for YOU would probably to get your APN degree, rather than changing courses and going into PA school.

[DebblesRN, ASN, BSN, RN]

I think some of it depends on where you live. I'm in Florida, and they do not hire PAs to work with babies in the nursery, sick or well. We have a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner who sees sick and well babies in the hospital setting. She works with the Neonatologists and always has an MD on backup.

Also, Neither PAs nor Nurse practitioners deliver babies here. Only MDs and CNMidwives deliver babies in the hospital setting. Licensed Midwives will do the home births and some birthcenter births.

If you are wanting to only see well newborns, it might be a better idea to work in a doctor's office setting. There are plenty of pediatric and family practice nurse practitioner programs, and I am sure they have the same type of specialization in the PA programs (but I will say I know next to nothing about PA school because it has never been an interest of mine.).

There was a group of PAs here that would lend themselves out as surgical assists, but only came for C/S deliveries, and they were like a nurse first assist. The doctors eventually stopped using them because it cost too much and they could better utilize the RNs for that role.

I think if you were wanting to work in the hospital setting, the NNP role would be a better fit. If you were going to work in the doctor's office, either the FNP, Pediatric NP, or PA would be fine, but since you are already on the Nursing path, it might be easier to go the NP route. Either way, whether you are a NP or a PA, you will be working under the supervision of an MD, so I think you should research the programs, find out which will be more cost effective and less time consuming for you, and go with your best option.

Good Luck. :)

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

At my hospital, we have PNPs and FNPs that work for the neonatology department and see babies in the newborn nursery and intermediate care nursery, as well as in the outpatient peds clinic that we have. The NNPs stay in NICU, but if we have a kid that crumps, they'll come evaluate them, and they cover the normal newborns if we have any issues overnight. The NNPs attend all the c/sections and other high-risk deliveries.

Being a nurse already, I'd go the PNP or FNP route if I were you. That way you can see babies, but you aren't boxed in to newborns if you decide to do something different later on.

[siroisco]

How do NP programs vary between PNP and NNP? Also, I won't have my BSN until December 2014. I have heard that any NP program is going to a DNP "by 2015"... does that mean that it would be more worthwhile and less time consuming to go the PA route?

[DalekRN]

The director of newborn services is a pa here at my hospital... He mainly does circumcisions and newborn physicals.

[siroisco]

Do you know what kind of PA he is?

[klone, MSN, RN]

The director of newborn services is a pa here at my hospital... He mainly does circumcisions and newborn physicals.

That is what the PA does at our hospital too.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Do you know what kind of PA he is?

I'm not sure, but I don't think PAs have designations like that, the way NPs do. I think that all PAs go through the same type of program and take the same certification exam.

[walkingrock, ADN]

No NNP's in my NICU. I have worked places where NICU's did use them. Pediatrician's do the circs. Well newborn checks are done by pediatricians, neonatologists, or an occasional PNP. The clinics out of the hospital system use some PA's. I haven't seen or heard of any being used in the hospital. Would it interest you to work as an RN in L&D or postpartum? I am an NICU RN, and go to deliveries all day every 1-2 weeks; many are just well newborns. I do the baby cares. we do 500-600 deliveries a month. I really don't know very much about the outpatient world. I do know I've interacted with PA's in the adult outpatient world myself, but don't know if peds uses them or not. The PA system is so different from RN I would think you would be wasting the education you already have and will finish to try to go the PA route.