Why have you decided to become a NP and not a Doctor?

Specialties NP

Published

Just what the title says.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Life happened in a different order for me. I turned 19 one month after my first child was born. We were married when I was 21. Had 3 more babies by 25. Was a stay at home Mom for years.

When the twins became old enough for preschool then I went back to school.

Earned an Associate's in Education 2007

Earned ADN 2009

Earned a BSN 2011

Earned DNP 2016

For me, it was important to earn my degrees to be an example to my children. Life doesn't stop because you choose a different path. At the time, it was more important that my husband finish his chemistry degree and then pharmacy school.

Medical school may have been my choice if I wasn't where I am in life, my age, and my kids weren't in ages they need me around a lot.

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Specializes in Emergency Room, CEN, TCRN.

I live in a rural area and work at the local VA which serves veterans of several states, but we are totally undermanned -- we have three primary care providers and are suppose to have 15. We're already swamped, and it's going to get worse because we're soon going to have a huge surge of veterans from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who are getting older and developing chronic conditions that require more medical care.

My goal entering healthcare is specifically to try to alleviate this crisis. Figured PA or NP was the fastest way for me to be able to make a difference in this situation, and also the path of least resistance as my GPA from a long time ago brought my cumulative numbers down to where it'd be a miracle if any medical schools even looked at the rest of my application (my nursing GPA is 3.9, my overall is 3.2). Currently obtaining my BSN, will hopefully get accepted into an FNP program when I graduate.

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Specializes in GENERAL.

Calling all doppelgangers.

Immature, stupid, deluded pig headed know it alls and more than happy to settle for the pocket change types.

I do love you people. I really do.

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Same with everyone here. Life happened. Actually...I wanted to go to med school and be an anesthesiologist. Found out that "med school" was actually not a degree but a set of classes you had to take. Counselors told me I needed an undergraduate/Bachelor's degree to get into "med school." Decided to go to nursing school...graduated with a BSN. Started working as a nurse and then worked with physicians and decided...naaah...don't want to do med school anymore and was just gonna stop at my BSN.

Fast forward ten years. Got married and started a family. Decided I wanted to do NP school. I'm now in NP school. Many - a - nights studying and even when I talk to my husband...I often tell myself....I could've gone to med school. But now it's too late. Life happened. But like everyone said ... if i had just continued on and if I knew I was gonna do NP school ten years later...I could've and should've just done med school.

So if it's not too late for you...go for it!!!!

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So if it's not too late for you...go for it!!!!

I'll take that as encouragement and support that my lonely, spinster status actually empowers me and makes me an ideal candidate for med school. You might not have achieved med school but at least you're not alone in life and you found someone to love you.

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I started college as a biology/pre-med major only to discover that a biology major meant spending most of my time studying plants and animals. I had a friend who was a nursing major and what he was learning looked so much more interesting. When I switched to nursing at the end of my freshman year, I still planned to take the rest of my pre-med requirements and go to med school when done with the nursing major. But, the more time I spent in the hospital, the more I saw the differences in roles between a doctor and a nurse or nurse practitioner. I knew I wanted to work in the NICU and I quickly realized that, in most NICUs, the nurse practitioners do most of the hands-on work. I want to be attending deliveries, putting in lines, and intubating, and I can do that as a practitioner.

Also, once I was done with my BSN, I was able to immediately start working in the area I was interested in. If I had gone to med school, I would have had 4 more years of learning about adults and very little about the area I was actually interested in. Going back to school now for neonatal nurse practitioner I get to still learn new things, but it is focused on the patients I will be caring for. Basically, I wanted to be able to do more hands-on work with infants and I didn't want to struggle through 4 more years learning about adults. Also, nursing has a different mindset than medicine, and I love having the scientific knowledge mixed with the compassion of nursing.

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Specializes in acute care.

It's a long story. Applied to med school right out of college, didn't get in despite strong GPA, MCAT etc. Was all set to reapply, got to thinking that I might want to have a family someday and in that case wanted some balance in my life which is often difficult as a doctor (though I think that is getting better). Decided to apply to NP programs, got in and became an acute care NP, and took a job on a hospitalist service which is what I am still doing. I really enjoy what I am doing now, although there are times I feel like I should have reapplied and gone to med school because I might have liked that even better and sometimes feel like I just don't have the level of knowledge that I would like to have. That said, I am getting married in the next year and plan to have a couple of kids, so at that point I will probably be glad I made the decision I did.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

A couple of things...the biggest thing is that as a future NP, I still get to be a nurse, and I enjoy being a nurse.

Med school is LONG and hard...I didn't want to be in school for 8 years + residency. I also do not think I'm smart enough to be a full-fledged MD/DO and there is also way more liability imo.

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A couple of things...the biggest thing is that as a future NP, I still get to be a nurse, and I enjoy being a nurse.

Med school is LONG and hard...I didn't want to be in school for 8 years + residency. I also do not think I'm smart enough to be a full-fledged MD/DO and there is also way more liability imo.

Sure you are, its not physics. The biggest hump is the MCAT, once people get over that they are good. If one can score 30+ med school is no problem. There are a few 25ers in my class too, some do good, some dont. Most md people are 30+ on average though at most state schools (509 on the new MCAT).

osteo schools have a litle bit lower average but they do well too. The bottom 1/4 of most DO schools though usually barely scrape by boards, while bottom 1/10ish at MD schools have problems w boards. But they overtrain you enough if you care at all about your patient you will be fine in practice. Of course it varies with each school and class but thats a rough estimate.

Trust me, there are harder things out there than med school, like software programming. I think i studied that stuff for like 15 hours once and figured out how to make a website with 5 words on it. Luckily we have wordpress lol! And of course taking math as a non math major is always extra work and not a walk in the park.

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I was originally a secondary education major. Dropped out during my second semester due to an abusive marriage and the messy divorce. Needed to get my head on straight before I was going to be useful to anyone. Worked as a nursing assistant until I decided I wanted to do more. Series of jobs and layoffs while I tried to find a job that would allow me to go back to school. Just finished my ADN, currently working on getting into a BSN program. Currently, the plan is to go back and become a DNP one day. I never originally planned on becoming a nurse or a doctor at all. However, it does seem that nursing is something I happen to be happy in and I am a constantly wants to improve my education kind of person, which nursing allows me to do.

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NPs don't go to medical school because they can't hack the prerequisites classes for medical school.

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Found out that "med school" was actually not a degree but a set of classes you had to take.

Medical school is a four year course of study which awards a degree known as the "Doctor of Medicine" and is abbreviated by the letters "M.D.". Whatever you "found out" was completely and totally incorrect.

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