What nursing jobs provide the best foundation for a NP?

[citynurse25]

Hi everyone. I would love to hear what nursing jobs you feel were beneficial to a career as an NP?

I'm currently an RN interested in becoming an NP in the future. I've worked as a nurse for a little over 4 years. My first nursing job was in hospital. I knew from the beginning that the hospital was not my thing. I enjoyed providing bedside care, but took an outpatient job with "normal" hours as soon as possible....which gave me about 10 months of hospital experience. After that, I worked for 2.5 years at a family practice. I then found my passion in public health, and have spent the past year as a public health nurse. Working alongside FNPs at my outpatient jobs has really inspired me to become an NP.

My end goal is to become a FNP working in a primary care or public health setting... but I am not in a rush. I am working on a Masters in Public Health and want to finish that. I want to pay off some debt, buy a house with my partner, hopefully start a family, etc. There are a lot of things I want to do before it will be the right time for me.

I'm content with working as a nurse for the next X amount of years. I would love to be a well-rounded NP in the future, and want to know what others feel are the best nursing experiences for that. I really enjoy the outpatient setting with more normal work hours. I don't necessarily want to go back to the hospital, but sometimes wonder if I should give it a try for a year or two to have a more well-rounded experience. I've also wondered if urgent care might be a good experience.

I would love any insights people have to offer. Thanks for taking the time to read my post! ?

[FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP]

If you want to be a primary care NP, then your current experience is fine. Working in the hospital as an RN really isn't going to benefit you that much at this point.

I am an NP in a rural primary clinic and here is my typical day:

1. About 50% of my patients are "urgent care" cases like: colds, bronchitis, UTIs, diarrhea, minor injuries, abscesses for I&D, joint pains and injuries, etc.

2. About 40% of my patients are chronic conditions like diabetes, HTN, heart disease, COPD, some mental health, etc. They are typically coming in for refills or scheduled follow ups, check ups, sometimes for an exacerbation of an existing condition.

3. 10% are new patients, annual physicals, women's health annual exams, etc.

If you can get more wound care experience, that would be a big plus, as we often have to do follow up care on discharged hospital patients, patients with chronic skin ulcers, cellulitis, etc.

Just keep doing what you are doing and you should be fine. Good luck.

[ICU2NP]

I'll just offer a different perspective from the previous reply - I believe that my inpatient RN experience has been EXTREMELY helpful for my NP education, mostly due to my assessment skills. As an ICU RN, I am doing full head to toe assessment q4h every time I'm at work. Plus appropriate focused assessment PRN if I see changes. I was able to see norms but also assess subtle changes and not so subtle changes; this experience has been invaluable. I'm not saying you have to go back & do ICU, but inpatient RN assessments provide great experience for when you expand to advanced provider assessment.

That said - I can COMPLETELY understand not wanting to go back inpatient once you have left!! The more I am working outpatient in my clinicals, the less I want to go back to my inpatient RN job? Also why I chose primary care NP instead of acute care - I want to get away from inpatient. So, I'm sure you will do fine continuing to work in your outpatient RN job! Good luck!

[citynurse25]

Thanks @FullGlass and @ICU2NP , I appreciate hearing your perspectives!

[BostonFNP, APRN]

Your experience is what you make of it. If you are invested in patients, you take time to listen to them, do full assessments, pay attention, and you follow their plans of care you will build yourself a good groundwork for advanced practice no matter what your setting is. If you do incomplete assessments, go through the motions, etc then no matter what setting you work in you won't gain much.

That being said, for working with primary care NP students from all sorts of different backgrounds, I've found that those with experience in ED, med-surg, primary care practices, case management, home health tend to have the most relevant exposures without some of the drawbacks of very specialized experiences like ICU, surgical, neonatology, etc.

My advice to perspective NP students is to work in a nursing role that you enjoy so you can get the most out of the experience.