Which NP specialty to choose, and how long should I wait to go onto my NP?

JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 23, 2013

Do you choose your specialty, or does your specialty choose you?

My choice of pediatrics was based on a number of factors. I was an older student in the nursing program and the only one with children. I was the "go-to" person in our nursing program in anything to do with children. I wanted to be a support person for parents, especially parents of children with special needs. (I actually became a special needs parent myself when my daughter was born with Down syndrome shortly before I finished the NP program.) Also, the NP program that I applied to didn't require previous nursing experience for peds -- whereas other specialties did have some requirements.

As to getting experience first, I recommend trying to work as an RN before going to school for NP. However, with the job market being what it is, you don't always get your first or second pick. Sometimes you just need to be flexible, take what you can get and make it work.

My first NP job is in a specialty -- asthma and allergy. We must have covered asthma at least 6 times over the course of the program and I always found it boring. But that's where an opportunity came up and guess what, it's turned out to be a very good fit for me. I'm becoming the asthma expert. But that's what I would have done regardless of where I ended up.

OfficerRNBSN · Oct 23, 2013

I had to work a year as an academic requirement, but I was able to take core/non-specialty classes that year as well. I recommend psychiatric-mental health NP. It's great because in my region grads are still recruited well before graduation, you get to talk, no DREs or pelvics, feces is far less common, and it's a much more focused area. A lot of nurses say "I've had a psych patient, and they drove me crazy." Yeah, me too, but NPs don't spend 8-12 hours babysitting and trying to talk patients into staying in their rooms. Interactions are visits...then you part ways. Plus behavior is kind of abstract and cool. Blood pressure and URIs are concrete and recurrent.

Working that year in the hospital helped only in the sense that I got more med exposure. I saw meds, heard their names, and knew what people were taking them for. In NP school I learned WHY they were taking those meds. From the moment I started workin as a RN I started NP school so in theory I always had more training beyond RNs ( albeit not experience) so I cannot gauge what it is like to go to work armed only with what I covered inRN school.

zmansc, ASN, RN · Oct 23, 2013

I recommend spending the next few years while you are finishing up your RN degree getting your feet wet in as many different settings as you can (volunteering often helps you get a better feeling for different settings) and then whatever you find you become passionate about is where you should go towards. If you have passion for your job, you will do better in all aspects, your education will be easier because you will be soaking up the information with zest, your work will seem less frustrating because you will be doing something you care about, etc.

So, I guess my advice is don't worry about what type of NP you want to become at this point, study hard, get good grades, make a good impression while your at clinicals, and gain contacts. If you can volunteer while in school, do so. If not, once your done, you pass your NCLEX you can look for job and/or volunteer positions where you can gain experience and know what you want or don't want to do.