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While earning my M.A. degree in Clinical Psychology, I had to complete over 600 hours of practicum/internship as a mandatory requirement for graduation. This initial exposure to real-life patient care was barely enough time to get my feet wet--to dabble in the clinical trenches, so to speak--and yet, it seems about equivalent to the total number of clinical hours required by most NP programs.
In the counseling field, however, there is one extremely important difference: After completing graduate school, a newbie M.A. still has lots more work and learning to experience before earning the qualification to treat patients independently. Specifically, in order to achieve professional licensure (i.e., LPC in most states) to practice psychotherapy as an autonomous clinician, an additional 3,600 hours of directly-supervised clinical experience is required. This usually amounts to working for two years in a high-stress and low-paying job, under the constant critical scrutiny of your licensed supervisor, who will hopefully still be around (and willing) to "sign off" that your 3,600 necessary hours have finally been completed. Oh, I almost forgot--you must also pass the national certification exam, which is another requirement for licensure--but this can be done at any point along the process.
So, ultimately, when all is said and done--and the official LPC credential is finally in your hand--you will have performed a bare minimum of 4,200 directly-supervised clinical hours (but in reality, it's always significantly more than 4,200 hours, because it takes at least several months for the state licensure board to approve your application--always after rejecting it several times because you forgot dot an "I" or cross a "T").
And after all that experience, sometimes you still feel like you have absolutely no idea what you are doing! Therefore, I really cannot fathom how so few clinical hours in NP programs could adequately prepare students for the complexities of their future advanced-practice role in our healthcare system, or why such a modest amount of practical experience would be sufficient to enable students for immediate entry into full professional status upon graduation.
But I also don't think that NP programs should necessarily start adding extra clinical hours to their required curricula. Instead, why not institute a structured period of post-MSN supervised clinical practice (perhaps similar to the LPC model) as a future prerequisite for NP licensure? I think an innovative new pathway for NP professional credentialing would help to standardize the training process and would really end up being beneficial for everyone.
That is exactly what New York's NP independence act is looking to do. If passed, an NP has to be supervised for 3 years and over 3 thousand hours, and only after that can they practice free of the mandatory collaboration that is currently in place. I personally want to do a formal residency when I reach that level of education, but I like that New York' version of an independent NP includes a mandatory on the job residency. I am not sure if other states also require this but I think this should be more common practice.