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What are the duties a surgical nurse practitioner can do? How often are they picked over surgical PA's? Is it a smart choice to pick surgery as an NP? Thank you
Surgical Nurse Practitioner?
- Thread starter Medical field27
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When you run into an np in a surgical situation, often they may have RN first assist certification, or are familiar with the or as a nurse. PAs seem to fit more naturally in a surgical setting, but I've heard about it enough to know it can be done. I'm not in OR much, if at all, so I don't know their ways, but I know of at least one NP that shows up to do just that at our facility.
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deleted6669
the vast majority of surgical jobs for nonphysician providers( > 95%) go to PAs just like the vast majority of psych and peds jobs( > 95%) go to NPs. there are 20+ surgical pa postgrad programs as well.
do yourself a favor, if you are intent on surgery go pa if you ever want to see the inside of the o.r..
lost of "surgical nps " actually just do postop clinic and no intraoperative work.
if I wanted to do psych I would have gone np.
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Well since it's easier to become a surgical PA, how hard is it to get into PA school after nursing school?
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Not very, if you have decent grades.
If you pick the right PA school, then you should get in somewhere. Right now I'm confident that I could get in most places I would want to go if I were still on that route instead of NP. But the programs I would want to go to are places that have high HCE requirements. I would imagine youd still have to make a good showing in the prereqs to make the cut. I think if an RN didn't make it into PA school, a lot of it would probably be due to having some serious academic mishaps that call into question their level of mastery over basic sciences. PA school is going to teach you totally new material, and you need to be able to keep up.
And like another poster mentioned, things vary according to region. There are tons of NPs in the ER. My ER has no PAs, just physicians and NPs. But I know that there are PAs and NPs in the other hospital systems in the area. NPs in surgery aren't common around here I don't think, but that could also be because we have quite a few residents. But that NP i know that does first assist seems to do really well. And just because you don't see a lot of something doesn't mean it's because it's hard to pull off. Much of it could be because theres a path to get there that isn't as fluid, and people don't think to travel it.
Yes, there are indeed surgical NPs that first assist (Google provides plenty of examples) many of whom have the RNFA credential. I do think that it's probably more common to have PAs in the intraoperative role (by virtue of the experience and education they receive in PA school specifically on surgery), and you'd generally see NPs in surgery involved from admission to discharge but not going to the OR, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible for NPs to have the same role, as you rightly say.
I think it's really facility dependent. I have absolutely no interest in peds (not looking forward to that in nursing school), psych, or neonatal. I'm interested in cardiology, cardiac surgery, and critical care. I don't think I'll have any problem going into any of them as an NP vs PA. As I've mentioned before, I've worked with RNs that were in NP school, and now work in cardiothoracic surgery, neurosurgery, and emergency medicine (main ER). Two coworkers of mine that are in NP school are interested in cardiology and are completing rotations in that (not surprising since that's the type of unit we work on). Looking at two hospitals in my city, I see one hospital only has NP jobs in neonatal, psych, palliative care, and internal/family medicine. Another hospital has NP openings in CT surgery, heme/onc, medicine, neurosurgery, pulmonary, transplant, medical onc, peds and adult congenital cardiac cath, and peds/neonatal. Definitely not worried about my options being limited to specific fields by virtue of being an NP.
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PAmac, 2 things:
1. Why did you choose NP vs PA? I feel you may have mentioned earlier but if so I apologize for not remembering.
2. Is PA school really that easy? I'm an RN, made a 4.0 at a top nursing school. I was turned off to PA school in my area due to cost (biggest factor) and perceived difficulty of admission - the one affordable state school in my area gets like 4000 applicants for 40 spots.
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deleted6669
as an RN with a decent GPA if you apply to 3 programs you will likely get into one of them. true, they are not cheap with few notable exceptions(RCC is 5k/yr for 2 years for example).
school itself is not that easy. getting in if you have good high level experience and grades is not too tough. maybe 10% of applicants today have experience at the level of medic/rn/rt. that is top shelf HCE and sets you apart from the thousands of applicants who are cnas and emt basics.
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Oh, I was asking about the ease of admission, not school. I know PA school is likely quite tough.
I would love to do PA school. I so wish the ones near me weren't so expensive :/
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I personally know two NPs that work in surgery. One in ortho, one in neuro. They both open and close, do post op rounds and post op clinic visits, among other various clinic duties. Both of them had specialty certifications as RNs and the NP doing ortho surg assit is double boarded as ANP and ONP.
Both of them were RNFAs for many years long before they were NPs.
They both make mad bank, but have to get up and be at work when the moon is still in the sky, which would be a deal breaker for me, lol.
There seem to be more PAs in the surgical specialties here, but I don't believe many of them go into the OR, but rather do the post op and clinic work, freeing up the surgeon to work where their talents run rampant and earn the greatest return.
Both of them were RNFAs for many years long before they were NPs.
They both make mad bank, but have to get up and be at work when the moon is still in the sky, which would be a deal breaker for me, lol.
There seem to be more PAs in the surgical specialties here, but I don't believe many of them go into the OR, but rather do the post op and clinic work, freeing up the surgeon to work where their talents run rampant and earn the greatest return.
sounds like being a surgical resident for life
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It kind of is except it is in private practice so the big cases are not nearly as crazy. Still tough though. My experience is different then CHillyRN, the PA's I see in surgical fields not only do the floor/clinic work, but they also perform as assistant surgeon. I've seen that in ORTHO and CTsurg. Probably depends more on specialty.
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deleted6669
yup. I have probably a dozen friends who are ortho pas. all go to the or, er, clinic, etc.
in the er they first assist and if there is a b/l procedure they do 1 side and the doc does the other.
my neurosurg pa friends take first call to the er, put in bolts, etc
