Look at what you want to do on a daily basis. Becoming an NP only makes sense to me if you can see yourself satisfied doing nurse work for a while, because that’s one of the checkpoints along the path to getting an NP degree. You could make it through to becoming an NP without spending much time as an RN at all, but it’s very rare that it works out that way. Nothing compels you to get into the dirty work of being an RN, and you can certainly find a way to skate through a number of different avenues. I’ve seen a handful of nurses do that. It would have been tortuous for me to navigate RN training if I knew it was just a stepping stone to becoming an NP. That’s not to say it wasn’t mostly a stepping stone, but it was a stepping stone that I enjoyed for the most part. That makes a difference. What I’ve always appreciated was the security of being an RN as a backdrop, the in depth exposure to healthcare I received, and the job satisfaction and camaraderie I enjoyed as a nurse. With all that came the sheer labor involved in the nursing I did. There are easier nursing roles than the ones I filled, but a lot of those roles require networking, as well as existing experience. There are tons of RN roles out there that range from school nurse, to public health nurse, to ER nurse, to employee health nurse, but jumping around among them can be hard, and you see folks settle in to the role they like best eventually. It can be hard to make jumps or enter certain roles if you don’t have some experience as a floor nurse to start with. And floor nursing is bruising.
I feel like if you like what you do, and are good at it, you can find satisfaction in any of the roles you’ve considered. Some careers are hot right now, but I’ve rarely thought about the latent lucrative nature of anything I’ve wanted to go into. Is it thought to find a job as a PA or NP or PT or pharmacist these days? It can be. The key is to be determined to be among the winners in each field. I’m in psyche, and psyche is hot, but it might not always be. I’m seeing FNPs and PAs getting into it and trying to cash in on what they think is good money and better lifestyle. I’m also seeing most of them crash and burn compared to those of us that are invested in psyche in ways they never did. It’s not like what they expected, and a long term relationship with a patient for a psyche issue is a lot different than handling a psyche issue as another provider. But my point is that folks who want to do the job they are in end up good at it in ways that make them successful overall. I can essentially name my price within reason. My friends that are good at what they do in other fields can do the same thing. Saturated job markets don’t matter to us. Therapists, physicians, NPs, PAs, etc send their patients to me. They seek me out. They know that I care. Employers wanted me when I was new because my name was out there from when I did rotations in the community. I networked and reached out to meet providers, even if just to introduce myself. Do the same kind of things as an OT, PA, or NP, or even a PT, and you’ll be doing more than 99% of everyone else in your field. If you want to sit around and just look for jobs, then you will feel what a saturated job market looks like.
One big caveat is that there is saturation. It is a thing. Your competition as an Np or PA will be experienced RNs who have worked as RNs, and they know the ropes of navigating the job market. They will tend to be older, and have played the game of networking as nurses. We jockeyed for jobs before within the RN world, and we know how to market ourselves. I honestly wouldn’t want to be a new grad PA right now due to debt, and due to the fact that the field has turned into everyone’s first real jobs when they come out of school. They marketed it as medical school lite, and their grads are young and fresh, and coking out of school at 25 with $150k+ of debt, and are having a hard time. I don’t know if that is every going to change. And the wages aren’t what they used to be. However, none of that really matters of being a prescriber isn’t what you really want to do. In essence, my suggestion is to pursue what you really want to do, rather than simply looking for a good career. People look at what I do, and think they know what I do, but they don’t see the day to day work I put in, or certainly what I did to get where I’m at. They also don’t see what I have to do at home to stay caught up on my role, between charting, continuing education, and reading to keep sharp. Even peers in other NP realms think they want to do what I do. But find what you want to do and chase it.
