@Ho0v-man
What?! Are you really putting all Nurse Practitioners in one category, based on what seems like your little experience and bizarre interactions from within your state? What state are you in? I've never heard anything of the sort.
First of all, BSN nurses need at least one year of nursing experience in the field of study they choose to pursue (i.e. Pediatrics, Critical Care, ER/Trauma, Medical/Surgical, Anesthesia, Psych, Mother/Baby, Neonatal, etc…). It’s not solely based on critical care experience, although that would be nice, it just makes no sense.
If you get below a B+ in any subject in my NP program (in New York) you’ll get kicked out. The ANCC and AANP board certification accredited agencies DO NOT allow any paper work or open book nonsense that you’ve described above.
Associate degree RN’s, who are working towards their BSN have taken most of their clinical rotations and classes already including, chem 101, bio 101, English 101, psych 101, soc 101, physiological chem, anatomy and phys 1 and 2, microbiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and etc. But like YOUR undergrad bachelor degree, and ALL other undergrad degrees (thanks to our ancient Greek friends) we must take liberal arts classes; like history, math, music/art, gym, and more philosophical nursing courses in leadership, health promotion and patient education, community health, research, and so on. I’m not going to lie, some of it was complete BS, but interesting in itself.
The fact that you talk down about a fellow health care profession is quite honestly deplorable. Nursing’s scope of practice is very different than that of medicine; actually, it’s completely different and not comparable. The BSN focuses more on leadership, management, research, and education. Licensed registered nurses already know, or should know, what lab values, medication treatment, and technical skills required to do their job.
Nurses do not truly learn medicine until their Masters education begins. But kudos to those nurses who had to work part time/full time while in school, who probably had to ensure their priorities were in order, like for example, raising a family, a mortgage to worry about paying, or even if they wanted to simply pay out of pocket for their schooling. I’m proud of them and their ambitious endeavor to better themselves while also helping to facilitate the movement towards professionalization in nursing!
Then after at least one year of experience, (almost no one gets accepted into the program with only ONE year of experience) you get to graduate school. There you’ll have to submit three letters of recommendation from nurse leaders, physicians, or other nurse practitioners. You’ll also need to write a five-page paper that includes all of the following below;
“The mission of the School of Nursing is to provide accessible, high quality undergraduate and graduate education to diverse student populations for the development of nurse leaders at all entries of practice. The mission will be accomplished through:
• Innovative programs that reflect the needs and current trends in healthcare of neighboring communities and the wider geographic regions;
• Provision of state-of-the-art healthcare and serve as a resource to the surrounding and global communities;
• Research that advances the scientific and theoretical foundations of nursing.
The essay question or personal response, needs to address the following topics:
• Discuss the personal qualities and attributes that you think will be useful as well as those that you feel need further development in preparation for the nursing profession.
• Provide your own definition of cultural competence, ethical sensitivity, leadership and life-long learning as well as how you may incorporate these concepts in your professional practice.
• Discuss how a graduate education in nursing will impact your future career goals.”
Then go through an extensive interview process because Stony Brook University is one of the top ranking universities in the world and they only accept the best of the best. The university gets around 34,110 applications a year and only 13,981 were accepted.
Here’s the link if you don’t believe me,
http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/fastfacts/
We’re also recommended to continue working as RN’s, so that we keep learning and growing as a profession. So we can take a part time or full time route but the program must be completed within 5 years. Just look up the NP programs at Stony Brook and what they require... You most definitely cannot compare our program to med school and residency but it’s not easy. Then after taking 46-56 credits and graduating we can sit for our national board certification and hopefully pass the first time.
After we pass our exam we can either work for a few years or go back for our doctoral degrees; write another big essay, and more interviewing, along with 42 more credits of doctoral work, clinical hours, and handing in an evidence based clinical project and which requires tireless hours of research, which will take about another 3-5 years to complete. But I think you get the point… I’m done writing everything out. But please do look up the requirements for the NP -DNP/PhD program at Stony Brook University as it’s quite intense, but again, not as intense as medical school, I’ll give you that!
All I know is that nurses need doctors like doctors need nurses, whether in the advanced practice role or as a floor nurse. Our education goes way beyond what you falsely describe in your failed attempt to belittle nurse practitioners. There is evidence based studies and journals out there that show positive patient outcomes based on the role of a nurse practitioner and that they can provide just as effective care as a physician.
I would never slander a medical doctor, even if they were horrible and made the profession look bad. You shouldn’t let your opinions of the select few incidences you've "heard of" or encountered define the profession as a whole. If nurse practitioner's weren't doing so well then I'm sure our malpractice insurance would be higher than $1500-$1700/year and the IOM would have nurse practitioners discontinued and relieved of their duties to practice medicine. After all it was MD's who initiated the start of the NP program in the 1960’s due to the great health care disparities among our nation that we’re seeing again now.
All in all I do agree that NP programs should require more clinical hours and most definitely a residency type program, but NP's, well most of them, are not idiots. I know many NP's who are well respected by physicians and other medical professions.
I've personally worked with some of the most fragile and sickest patients in New York. My five years of experience in ER/Trauma, ICU/CCU/PICU, Cardiac/Stroke and Hospice specialties have really prepared me to move up in the nursing profession. I also think the education that is afforded to us is what we make of it. I plan on reading vast amounts of medical journals and studying along side other NP’s, PA’s, medical students, and physicians who I call my friends and colleagues.
