RNFA APRN

[CardiacDork, MSN, RN]

What exactly do APRNs RNFA do? Do you have to be an APRN to be an RNFA?

If not, is there a pay difference or widened scope of practice with advanced licensure?

Do APRNs RNFA get stuck doing a lot of "grunt work" and much less actual OR work?

I know salary reports are extremely varied. I read the national median salary is about 80,000 which I consider pretty low considering right now as a RN with an ADN I make that or a little above, in suburban Houston.

Just curious about your career. Would like to hear from some nurses rather than an article.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

NP is a separate designation from RNFA. You can be one, the other, or both. I work with an RN who at one time was a surgical technologist, went to school to become an RN, worked in the OR getting the required experience, and then became an RNFA. She is not an NP but by nature of being an RNFA has an extended scope within the assistant role in surgery. There are several NPs employed by physician practices that function in the role of first assistant during surgery as well- some of them have also become RNFAs and some have not. The key difference is what the NP can do outside the OR- round on patients, write orders, see patients in the office, all those things that the scope of being an NP allows them to do. The RNFA without the NP scope cannot do those things. The RNFA pay is higher than an RN pay but not as much as the NP pay.