Admittedly, I'm a bit different than the typical RN. I've been a nurse for just under 5 years, so I'm not a noob. I also have a biology degree, and a medical laboratory science degree and experience there as well. I have all the premed coursework, as well as having took heavy sciences as my electives even though they weren't required for my major. I've taken the DAT and did well, especially in the bio sciences section where I scored above the 98th percentile among all the extremely intelligent folks sitting for that exam. I also have all the coursework in my background to be able to sit for the MCAT (which I have yet to meet a nurse or an NP personally that could do that). I'm attending a top ranked NP school with brick and mortar and a great reputation where I'm NOT at all challenged, and am blown away that my pathophysiology coursework were the weakest pathophysiology coursework I've ever taken (took it as an undergrad, and again at a different institution to refresh before I applied to nursing school). My 4.0 comes with minimal effort. I've met experienced nurse practitioners with plenty of RN experience that didn't have basic understanding of biological principles, and that's happened on enough occasions that it terrifies me. They are also overconfident in areas that only slightly correlated to their RN experience. If there is anything lowering the standards for the NP profession, it's the rigor of NP education...hands down. It is subpar, and that was before all of the lower quality NP programs emerged (which I'm noticing that my experienced RN peers seem to be attending quite frequently due to personal convenience).
No... It's not the noobs hurting the profession and lowering the standards.... It's the NP education establishment. And it not only fails the folks without much experience (that I know the profession was not built around) but also the experienced RNs. They just don't know the science behind a lot of what they are doing unless they went out on their own and sought it out.
Assessment skills are skills. They teach them to PAs and they go out and do very well. RNs in the right environment perform them enough to catch on fairly quick, and they can become very adept at the ones associated with the limited RN role. Some things get better with age, other things just get faster.
I feel for the NPs that don't have a background like mine because they often have bare bones basic science knowledge to draw from. I've had very experienced NP professors with only a passing knowledge of the scientific principles they are touching on. NP school has turned into instruction on how to be a "self learner" and how to "look up the latest research when you hit a wall". I think experience is helpful, but I'm just not feeling the notion that spinning wheels for years as an RN is the be all end all threshold that will improve the profession. At this point, we spend more time out of the room doing intricate documentation than we do assessing our patients anyway. Are you saying that contributes a lot to the RB to NP experience as well.
