Questions about Nurse Practitioner Degree

cbc1147 · Jul 27, 2011

Nurse Practitioners spend time with patients just in a different manner. RN's in a hospital/clinic setting are in essence bed side nursing and following out orders from practitioners and performing their own assessments and ensuring comfort of their patients.

As a practitioner you can spend time with your patients trying to critically think through their symptoms, labs, and assessment findings to adequately and properly treat them.

Just depends on how you want your career to progress. Personally I like the idea of advancing my education and clinical skills to diagnose and treat patients, more than just following written orders. There is nothing wrong with that, it again just depends on your personal goals in the nursing field.

Nurse practitioners typically do not work 12 hour shifts from my knowledge, they work more M-F 7-5 (ish) and may only take an on call weekend once a month or so.

If I had the chance I would do the combined degree plan. Alot of people will say gain some experience, which is true, but you can work as an RN once you get your license which I am sure can be before you graduate the combined BS/Master degree.

Overall your young and whatever you decide you can still go either way and have a good career. Do what you think would make you happy, thats the most important thing.

szeles23 · Jul 27, 2011

It depends on the areas but many NPs work 12 hour shifts in the hospitals if they are ED NPs. In most cases schools will only accept you after you have had a years experience as an RN in the clinical setting, depending on the specification of the school and program sometimes they require a years experience in a certain department/specialty. I have often read (especially on these boards) that experience as an RN will really help you become a better NP as well.

I'm all for continuing beyond my BSN, I know I want at least a masters. I guess I really like learning and I think I would like to be on the more diagnostic side of things rather than just following orders/plans of care eventually. My school here offers a FNP/MPH dual masters program and I would so do it but we will be moving upon the completion of my BSN. Good luck in whatever you choose to do!

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jul 27, 2011

not every nurse with a master's is a nurse practitioner (np). it sounds as if you aren't clear what the proposed degree will give you.

nps have a lot more autonomy than staff rns, generally speaking. they can work in hospitals, in medical practices, in specialty clinics like oncology or hiv or developmental psych-- in free-standing offices (hanging out their own shingles), in primary care, as midwives, as gerontologists, many places--- what interests you?

mns can open many different kinds of doors-- management is only one of them ("telling other nurses what to do"?? not really). being a clinical specialist is one; teaching is another. i am an independent certified nurse life care planner and case manager, for example.

if it's too soon to tell whether this program option interests you, i'd consider signing up for it anyway, and the worst that can happen is that you decide to defer some of the course work to some later time. great opportunity. northeastern? get some nifty coops and look around. don't do the same thing every coop, do something radically different in every one. you may never get a similar chance!