RN experience helpful and essential to be a NP

allnurses Guide · May 9, 2014

You will hear the same varied responses.

chillnurse, BSN, RN, NP · May 9, 2014

with physical exams, people skills, and time management yes. diagnosing and pharmacology not so much.

apostolic4eva · May 9, 2014

Understood. Thanks. Guess its safe to say, I'll be experiencing the "novice" feeling again. Thanks for weighing in with your responses.

Riburn3, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP · May 12, 2014

Helpful? Yes.

Essential? Probably not. This forum is full of anecdotes of RN's going straight into NP school with no experience and being successful.

I would also argue the quality of experience as an RN is incredibly important to the utility it provides you as an NP. If you graduate and go straight to wound care, where your job is typically assessing wounds and doing dressing changes, I can't imagine that being too helpful as an NP no matter how much experience you have. However, if you graduate and spend time working in critical care, your pharmacology and pathophysiology knowledge will drastically increase, as will your time management, and it will serve you well as an NP. Similarly, if you've been a nurse for a few years in an OB area, you're likely going to have a large leg up as a Women's Health NP student versus a student that has no experience in Women's Health.

Riburn3, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP · May 12, 2014

I'll also add that Physicians in my area of Texas when hiring new grad NP's look closely at their RN nursing experience.

zenman · May 12, 2014

If you are working as an RN and want to go to NP school you will have lot's of opportunities to prepare yourself. For example, you can listen to breath sounds, bowel sounds, heart sounds both before and after a physician does and compare your findings. For each med you give research it as well as the patient's condition. As the physician why he chose one drug over another. Got it? You can be as prepared as you want to be. BTW I had 37 years experience as an RN before I went to PMHNP school. Want to compare my performance on day 1 as an NP with someone with no RN experience?

Dembitz, APRN · May 12, 2014

I would also argue the quality of experience as an RN is incredibly important to the utility it provides you as an NP. If you graduate and go straight to wound care, where your job is typically assessing wounds and doing dressing changes, I can't imagine that being too helpful as an NP no matter how much experience you have.

Just to argue for the sake of arguing, I had to refer a patient to a wound clinic this week for a burn I probably could have managed in office with more wound care experience (and dressing supplies). I don't think any particular RN experience is essential to being an NP (possible exception for inpatient NP care, which I've never done), but I think you can make any RN experience useful.

chillnurse, BSN, RN, NP · May 12, 2014

helps some but its still totally different jobs. A lot of RN jobs consist of simply passing meds. some are more complex. just all depends. working in a nursing home doesnt help me with working in a hospital setting. As ICU exp doesnt help much with clinic, but it will help more than the former

Riburn3, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP · May 13, 2014

helps some but its still totally different jobs. A lot of RN jobs consist of simply passing meds. some are more complex. just all depends. working in a nursing home doesnt help me with working in a hospital setting. As ICU exp doesnt help much with clinic, but it will help more than the former

I'm quite curious what NP school you're in and where you draw your knowledge from.

I am a critical care nurse that still works full time while finishing up my FNP program (graduate this December). The knowledge I have received regarding medications, pathophysiology, and assessment skills from my critical care job helps me immensely when treating outpatients in a clinic rotation. When you care for the sickest people possible, you get an incredible understanding of the pathophysiology that leads to that point of sickness, as well as some very unique assessment opportunities. When you are at the ground level doing clinical care working primarly in prevention and disease management, you can speak from experience the consequences that their unchecked diabetes, hypertension, and pulmonary diseases can create. Thanks to my critical care experience, my knowledge of the medications I am prescribing is fairly vast, with only dosing protocols for new treatment being the focus of my learning.

I honestly can't imagine being a new RN jumping right into NP school since there are so many benefits having RN experience has. That said, had I known how much fun and how rewarding being an NP is, I wouldn't have waited so many years after I finishd my BSN before jumping into NP school. If I were to do it again, I would have gotten my year or two if experience in critical care, applied for NP school, and still worked (like I am now).

zenman · May 13, 2014

I'm quite curious what NP school you're in and where you draw your knowledge from.
I am a critical care nurse that still works full time while finishing up my FNP program (graduate this December). The knowledge I have received regarding medications, pathophysiology, and assessment skills from my critical care job helps me immensely when treating outpatients in a clinic rotation. When you care for the sickest people possible, you get an incredible understanding of the pathophysiology that leads to that point of sickness, as well as some very unique assessment opportunities. When you are at the ground level doing clinical care working primarly in prevention and disease management, you can speak from experience the consequences that their unchecked diabetes, hypertension, and pulmonary diseases can create. Thanks to my critical care experience, my knowledge of the medications I am prescribing is fairly vast, with only dosing protocols for new treatment being the focus of my learning.
I honestly can't imagine being a new RN jumping right into NP school since there are so many benefits having RN experience has. That said, had I known how much fun and how rewarding being an NP is, I wouldn't have waited so many years after I finishd my BSN before jumping into NP school. If I were to do it again, I would have gotten my year or two if experience in critical care, applied for NP school, and still worked (like I am now).

I triple like this...and I'm still half asleep. You wouldn't believe what I've picked up in psych due to my critical care and med-surg, ED, home health, etc, etc background. I sometimes tell primary care what's coming their way, lol!

chillnurse, BSN, RN, NP · May 13, 2014

I think as I said above. Helps with pe but the mess used in clinic are totally different than icu. Minus putting the patients home meds down their peg tube. Diagnosing which is one of the biggest parts of our job is totally not used as an rn