MD or NP ?

[lolakbolak]

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I'm a 25 years old and I've been a bedside nurse for 2 years and I hate it. I do the job well but both my new preceptor and old preceptor told me I should go get counseling for depression. I know I need to get out of my job quick because I am unhappy and others can see it. I have no life and I like to study. Always wanted to be a doctor but I was overwhelmed by how many years it will take.
I am still fairly young, only have an associates degree and thought itd be a good time to quit and do what I want to do. People tell me I'm nuts that I should become a nurse practicioner so I can at least work and have a life, but I'm realizing it will take 6 years for me to become a doctor of nursing or I can become an MD in 6 years and have autonomy and a better paycheck. I'd be happy with internal medicine. What would you do? I really dont have anyone to talk to about this I'd like to hear your opinion. Thanks!

 

[La Presse]

What do you value?

 

[TangoDown]

Going NP will be overwhelmingly easier.

It ultimately depends on your priorities. Sure, you'll become a doctor in 6 years, but you won't have the autonomy a physician has until after residency. So that's 9 years at the least (assuming the first 2 years are for finishing prereqs/getting a BA/BS).

Do you have the money to pay for med school? Are you willing to take on the debt load if you don't? Do you truly desire the autonomy of being a physician and the responsibility than comes in toe with that?

Finally, why do you hate being a nurse? Is it because you don't have the above autonomy and expertise, or is it because you don't like working in the medical field? You need to qualify this before you decide to become a practitioner.

 

[DokterMom]

What do you value?

If you have an associates degree now and everything goes well, you can have an MD degree in 6 years, but you won't be able to practice medicine without completing a residency -- so add 3-5 more years.

And consider very carefully what it is about nursing that you do and do not like. If you think you have no life now...

 

[globalferver]

I think that it would be a great idea to go to medical school! I myself worked as an ICU Nurse for two years before I went back to get my premed classed. I had a bachelor's to start with, so it only took me to years to finish up my premed (this us my last quarter now). I just recently am accepted to medical school. There are a couple of things for you to gobo about however. Why don't you like your job right now? Why/how do you think being an MD is going to fix that? Being a doctor is not going to be easier than nursing, so go shadow some MD's in different areas where you haven't worked, see what they do behind the scenes. Talk to some MD's at work and so on. Find a doctor you like, talk to them, listen to their suggestions. Hope that helps.

***Blessings ***

 

[charmedj7]

There's a million threads on this. Sorry, I had to say it. Allnurses has a few as does SDN. That said:

Why do you hate bedside nursing so much? I would worry that neither NP or MD will magically make all your problems go away if you are truly miserable in your current role. You will still be working with patients and their families, you will still be yelled at and criticized and people will demand things and ignore you on occasion. You will still have lots of paperwork, long hours, off hour and holiday shifts, bureaucracy, stress, overly high patient volumes, toxic coworkers. Now of course, on the balance if you truly love the medical field these are more or less blips that do not mar your overall taste for medicine.

As either an NP or MD you will have more decision-making power and less hands-on patient interaction. There will still be busywork but it will be a different sort. Probably as an MD you will have longer hours once in practice (and certainly in residency) but then NPs can often be stuck with overnight shifts and such. Getting an MD is certainly a longer haul but at the end the glass ceiling is very much minimized and if you really like to study and want to understand things at the highest level you may well get a lot of satisfaction from the MD route. NP is better if you value flexibility and are content with knowing things on a somewhat shallower level. Also know that NPs get about 750 hours of clinical time before going into independent practice vs. 5+ years as an MD, for better or for worse.

There's also the financial argument: As an NP you could probably get a lot of the education comped by your job or at worse, take on the debt but you will come out in 1-2 years making 80-100K likely. Considering you will be earning that salary 5+ years longer than an MD, and have accrued less debt, this could be a better proposition. IM docs make about 150K on average, maybe a bit more, but med school debts can be crazy high especially after deferring payments to finish school. Applying for medical school is also very expensive, certainly more so than NP school.

Anyway, I think those are the major considerations, at least the ones I thought about. Good luck.

 

[lolakbolak]

I don't have money but there's some schools that are fairly cheap, Rutgers which is close to me is about $7000/year. Also I'd have a salary during residency so I'd be able to support myself and start paying off my debt. I love medicine but I hate nursing they keep us understaffed and nobody appreciates me, I had 6 patients the other day w/ a GI bleed who I had to prep for a colonoscopy. My tech was nowhere to be found, I had to toilet this patient the whole day and the stench was horrible, I was behind on my charting and other patients

 

[TangoDown]

I don't have money but there's some schools that are fairly cheap, Rutgers which is close to me is about $7000/year. Also I'd have a salary during residency so I'd be able to support myself and start paying off my debt. I love medicine but I hate nursing they keep us understaffed and nobody appreciates me, I had 6 patients the other day w/ a GI bleed who I had to prep for a colonoscopy. My tech was nowhere to be found, I had to toilet this patient the whole day and the stench was horrible, I was behind on my charting and other patients

"They keep us understaffed and nobody appreciates me"

Residency lol.

And you'll be disimpacting bowels as a resident and doing nasty stuff like that.

As an NP, you will still be a nurse. As per clinical science, NP school doesn't really teach it.

You ever thought about being a PA? Might fit you more. The good schools only accept people with prior health care experience (i.e. nursing). You have (essentially) the same autonomy as an NP but arguably much better schooling. Plus, the schooling is only 2 years.

 

[illegallysmooth]

If you want to be in primary care (IM, FP, Peds, OB, psych), and having enough time outside of work is important to you, I would recommend becoming a PA. It takes either 5 or 6 years to become a PA, you might be able to do less depending on which credits transfer or whatever. From what I know, the education follows the "medical model," not the stupid "nursing model," which is BS for someone in a practitioner role. The PA students with whom I've worked seemed far better prepared than the NP students. Maybe shadow a PA? If you are not sure you want to be in primary care, then if I were you I'd have to consider med school vs PA school in terms of what level of autonomy I desired and how much responsibility I wanted to carry.