The economics of PA vs. NP

A PA asserts that their futures may be limited by supervising requirements despite lower educational requirements for NP's. Specialties NP

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A PA asserts that their futures may be limited by supervising requirements despite lower educational requirements for NP's.

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/whats-the-future-of-the-physician-assistant.html

Specializes in Psych/Mental Health.

To each his/her own (regarding DNP). But I generally agree with KatieMI. I believe anyone with a solid undergrad/MSN and some experience can critically assess research and complete a quality EBP (or QI) project without a DNP.

The other courses (e.g. healthcare economics/finance, information management, policy, epidemiology) have little to no practical use for most and because most RNs have never seen or worked in these areas nor have the necessary foundation, and these classes are taught at the most superficial and broad level. To think that you can be a leader in anything that has to do with healthcare finance/economics with just one course is absurd.

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Specializes in Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care.
15 hours ago, umbdude said:

To each his/her own (regarding DNP). But I generally agree with KatieMI. I believe anyone with a solid undergrad/MSN and some experience can critically assess research and complete a quality EBP (or QI) project without a DNP.

The other courses (e.g. healthcare economics/finance, information management, policy, epidemiology) have little to no practical use for most and because most RNs have never seen or worked in these areas nor have the necessary foundation, and these classes are taught at the most superficial and broad level. To think that you can be a leader in anything that has to do with healthcare finance/economics with just one course is absurd.

Same holds true for any degree, including an MBA. But these degrees do give you the foundation necessary to continue building. They also have the tangible benefit of opening doors not otherwise available. I've had several opportunities outside of academic because of graduate education beyond my MSN, with recruiters specifically mentioning this. It's becoming increasingly important for administration and other non-direct patient care jobs. If patient care is all that is desired, you'll do fine with only the MSN, but burn out is real and more will be needed to transition into academia or administration when one is ready to either find something away from the hospital (in the case of ACNPs) or to wind down one's career with something less stressful.

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Specializes in Psych/Mental Health.
1 hour ago, Neuro Guy NP said:

Same holds true for any degree, including an MBA. But these degrees do give you the foundation necessary to continue building. They also have the tangible benefit of opening doors not otherwise available. I've had several opportunities outside of academic because of graduate education beyond my MSN, with recruiters specifically mentioning this. It's becoming increasingly important for administration and other non-direct patient care jobs. If patient care is all that is desired, you'll do fine with only the MSN, but burn out is real and more will be needed to transition into academia or administration when one is ready to either find something away from the hospital (in the case of ACNPs) or to wind down one's career with something less stressful.

I don't doubt that the DNP opens more doors to academia/admin. I was talking about the educational value.

MBA isn't a terminal degree and it's the opposite of DNP...the educational value is there (the curriculum is not fluff), but it doesn't open doors unless you're strategic about what kind of program you choose.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
4 hours ago, umbdude said:

I don't doubt that the DNP opens more doors to academia/admin. I was talking about the educational value.

MBA isn't a terminal degree and it's the opposite of DNP...the educational value is there (the curriculum is not fluff), but it doesn't open doors unless you're strategic about what kind of program you choose.

I was in an MBA program for a year and it was all fluff except for the finance classes. Do-doo degree.

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Specializes in Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care.
8 hours ago, umbdude said:

I don't doubt that the DNP opens more doors to academia/admin. I was talking about the educational value.

MBA isn't a terminal degree and it's the opposite of DNP...the educational value is there (the curriculum is not fluff), but it doesn't open doors unless you're strategic about what kind of program you choose.

I don't think it's fluff, but I agree that the educational value may not be there for some people who are interested in clinical topics. By the way, the PhD in Nursing offers nothing additional in terms of clinical science either - I challenge anyone to review some programs - but I don't see it getting the hate the DNP does. I don't understand why. This is the point so many people miss, namely that doctoral education is meant to prepare you to either research or be translational or make systemic impact.

Doctoral education by and large is not meant to reinvent the wheel teaching content you have already learned. This is largely true for many degrees. I have a PhD as well as to be honest only the first portion of the program focused on didactics, and even then a lot of it was research and policy related to neuroscience. The only exception would be DNP degrees granting initial licensure, such as post-BSN DNPs.

But then again, we have seen the same pattern in nursing over and over with ADNs complaining about the BSN stating it doesn't add any value, how their ADN was harder than the BSN for those who did end up going back for the BSN, etc etc. Unfortunately, it never stops in nursing it seems. It just doesn't seem possible for a segment to say that something isn't for them. Instead, they must tear it down along the way.

For those that are motivated to pursue a doctoral nursing education, go for it. It IS worth it depending upon your goals despite the nay sayers.

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9 hours ago, subee said:

I was in an MBA program for a year and it was all fluff except for the finance classes. Do-doo degree.

Agreed! I felt like the only thing I got out of mine was the ability to talk meaningless jargon to all of the MBAs out there. As they would say in my program MBA= Master ** artist...

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Specializes in N/A.

What makes an MBA a less attractive option? And can it help someone to move in the administration....what type of salary increase can one expect by having an MBA + NP?

Thanks for all your suggestions.

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Specializes in psych/medical-surgical.

The same core problem exists in the MBA as many DNP programs; lack of curriculum rigor and hard scientific focus. Most MBA programs are all online right? Same with the NP programs. Lack of in person contact can't possibly increase a program's rigor for the student. That means standards are low. The issue is not the degree itself, which many nurses try to dumb this argument down to.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
On 8/10/2020 at 11:20 AM, Sun1 said:

What makes an MBA a less attractive option? And can it help someone to move in the administration....what type of salary increase can one expect by having an MBA + NP?

Thanks for all your suggestions.

I don't know if there are any programs left with combined MSN-MBA. That would be more helpful for someone who wants to work in administration. I took my classes in person and the MBA class were still doo-doo. The MSN classes were still administrative in nature and I got more from them.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
On 6/22/2020 at 10:10 AM, KatieMI said:

I was also interested. There are no such studies, and I have access to one of the best searching systems in the world.

Yep.  Just proves my point that studies done by nurses to promote nursing have to be taken with a salt shaker.

 

 

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Specializes in Former NP now Internal medicine PGY-3.
On 7/4/2020 at 5:53 PM, DrCOVID said:

Nope:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/614872

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17626694/

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/96th-congress-1979-1980/reports/79doc633.pdf

https://journals.lww.com/ccmjournal/Abstract/2008/10000/Nurse_practitioners_and_physician_assistants_in.25.aspx

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16495196/

https://journals.lww.com/jncqjournal/Abstract/2008/10000/Critical_Care_Nurse_Practitioners_Improve.9.aspx

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC100791/

https://www.CDC.gov/pcd/issues/2014/13_0175.htm

https://ota.fas.org/reports/8615.pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.855.177&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109715048640?via%3Dihub

You gotta go to med school to be a good provider, everyone knows that!

wait what these studies are all old and don’t compare physician to NP via any useful metrics. most are just showing that adding nps to care teams is useful. 

 

not sure how any of these can be used to compare NP vs docs. and most studies that do only follow for a few years. primary care is a game of decades not five years. 

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Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
2 hours ago, Tegridy said:

wait what these studies are all old and don’t compare physician to NP via any useful metrics. most are just showing that adding nps to care teams is useful. 

 

not sure how any of these can be used to compare NP vs docs. and most studies that do only follow for a few years. primary care is a game of decades not five years. 

We can argue studies all day. Bottom line NP IP is growing and is unlikely to slow let alone reverse.  Thus, we are winning and that is a good thing for NP's and probably also for patients.

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