Switching NP Specialty Tracks?

[psych.nurse]

Hi.

I'm about halfway through the FNP program at Simmons, but I've been thinking that maybe I want to be a psychiatric/mental health NP instead. I was accepted to a psych NP program, also in Boston, but decided to go with the FNP because I thought it would be more versatile. I'm starting to feel that I might be happier in psych.

I talked to someone in the psych NP program at BC, and she told me that I may be able to transfer some of my credits. I am already an RN (not doing Direct Entry), and have worked in psych in the past.

Has anyone here switched specialty tracks? To what extent would I be able to treat psych patients as an FNP?

Thank you!

[Dogen]

I'm in a psych NP program, and the thing they remind us of is that as NPs we have broad licenses. In Oregon I can, in theory, prescribe the vast majority of drugs. But if I'm ever sued or investigated by the state board I have to be able to prove I have the education and expertise to safely treat what I'm prescribing for. What that means is that if a patient of mine develops T2DM from their antipsychotic, I treat them for it, and they get hurt I'm taking a big risk because my program doesn't train me in diabetes management and I don't have clinical experience prescribing for it under supervision to develop expertise (even though I'm a T1DM myself).

Of course, you'll have psych patients, because everyone has psych patients, but if you're not explicitly trained in the intricacies of psych meds... should you be treating them?

[Jules A, MSN]

It depends on your state's board of nursing. When I only had my psychNP, before I got my FNP, I could only continue somatic medications that patients were already on but could not make changes or initiate them even though I had the same general pharmacology course as FNPs, ANPs and CRNAs.