I am starting my MSN-FNP this Fall (well, actually, later this month:)). I currently have 1.5 years of RN experience on a busy/acute Medical Oncology unit and now also work in more of a Med-Surg/Oncology setting. By the time I graduate/license I will have anywhere from 4-5 years of experience as an acute care RN. I am 45 (nursing is my second career), hence did not want to delay grad school, but have some trepidation about entering the NP career with limited nursing experience. I see NPs and PAs in my current line of work who have limited "field" experience prior to and they are doing really well, which is encouraging. At the same time, I see many of my colleagues and future classmates who have 15+ years of experience prior to grad school and that makes me think....
Anyway, would love to hear from those of you who became an FNP with limited nursing experience. Do you feel like you are at a disadvantage? Do you wish you got more experience prior to going back to school? Or do you feel at a reasonably level footing with your more experienced colleagues.
OP: I don't wish to be unkind or disrespect you in any way. But the "nursing experience" I feel is essential to becoming a competent nurse practitioner. This I believe gives the NP an edge on the PAs or others that see patients as merely a morass of biological systems. This isn't a touchy-feelly point of view but a way to affirm that nurses bring more to the table then merely seeing people as just another science project.
To use a journalistic analogy good nursing teaches how to ferret out the story behind the story or, say in an ederly patient's case, the alienation of old age behind the somatic complaint.
But the so-called nursing leadership has dropped the ball here once again by caving-in to the cash cow of NP schools that are spewing out NPs and relgating them to "a dime a dozen" status.
Thank you for contributing, @Buyer Beware. I don't see any disrespect in your statement that nursing experience is valuable in NP practice. I have nursing experience, value it and will have more of it by the time I graduate.
Anyway, would love to hear from those of you who became an FNP with limited nursing experience. Do you feel like you are at a disadvantage? Do you wish you got more experience prior to going back to school? Or do you feel at a reasonably level footing with your more experienced colleagues.
I can give you the opposite perspective, if that helps at all. I just finished an FNP program, and I went into it with almost 11 years of staff nurse experience (mostly telemetry & med/surg). I just took my boards on Tuesday (after being face down in a book for a few months) and I honestly feel like my staff nurse experience didn't help me get through school and pass my boards as much as I thought it would. I feel like inpatient and outpatient settings are such different beasts that, sure, I could identify an acutely ill patient in the office, but there is SO much outpatient and primary care information that you just do not see in the hospital setting. I haven't started working yet, so I may change my tune on that, but that's been my impression so far.
I think you would be just fine as an FNP after having 4-5 years of nursing experience.
INN_777, BSN, RN
432 Posts
Thank you for contributing, @Buyer Beware. I don't see any disrespect in your statement that nursing experience is valuable in NP practice. I have nursing experience, value it and will have more of it by the time I graduate.