NewFNP would be absolutely fine to stay on CME, take hikes through beautiful mountain trails, reconnect with good pals from grad school, drink White Russians and play Quiddler.
For those who are interested, newFNP posted her notes from a very helpful EKG interpretation lecture on the newFNP Facebook page. The response has been quick and somewhat shocking. How is it that so many new nurse practitioners feel like their EKG education was utter shit? NewFNP certainly did. One reason might be that the lecture newFNP attended was one that is normally given to medical residents. What the fuck, expensive brand-name nurse practitioner school from which newFNP is a proud alum? Your students don't deserve as good an education? Lame. Apparently, there is a nationwhide epidemic of poorly taught EKG interpretation in NP schools. Super lame.
NewFNP maintains that NP education needs a bit of a re-vamp. A little more specialty exposure that is highly relevant to primary care -- like dermatology, neurology, endocrinology and cardiology -- is in order. Seriously, when so many NPs are planning to work in community health where access to specialty care is nearly non-existent, throw your students (and their future patients) a bone. And then give NPs a residency. It doesn't have to be three years, but even a year or eighteen months would go a long way in helping newly minted NPs be more ready to care for patients.
Sadly, it's unlikely that newFNP will ever be in a position to transform nursing education. Yet with all the NPs in this country and in school currently, she wonders just how in the hell is it that it hasn't been done yet?
14 comments:
Totally agree! Are there any established NP residency programs?
Girl, you speak the truth! Couldn't have said it better myself. Wishing for a derm and ortho rotation and wondering why the hell we don't have residency.
I'd love to get a post on your thoughts on how to get an NP job out of school . . . very, very nervous about it!
Kerr - there is 1 residency program in the country in Connecticut. Not staying on the east coast, so it's not for me! Boo.
So come to NZ and help us re-vamp the NZ NP education instead! Seriously needing any help down under!
Johns Hopkins has a GI residency for NP's. It's true, we definitely need more!
newfnp, you are so right about the issues in np education... let's get our doctorates and reform that child!
But will the doctorate really make a difference?
I would, gladly, have traded all the hours wasted on nursing theory for a good derm course, or EKG interpretation course, or GI stuff, or birth control methods - ANYTHING that would have actually helped me and my patients in real life practice.
If a doctorate offered residency type experience, I'd say yes to that!
There needs to be more clinical education rather than theory. I would have used my clinical time learning more of what I really needed to know. I didn't get enough EKG instruction either. If there was a program for a DNP that didn't require ANOTHER research project, I would do it.
Isn't that what the DNP was going to be all about?
Of course, the prob is that the first people the DNP is being marketed to are current NPs, who can get this stuff from current jobs and/or CMEs. So they needed to come up with stuff we don't get otherwise. Enter: health care finance, epi, informatics, etc etc etc.
Do I, as a working NP, feel like I need to complete a residency? Hell no! Sure, my first job essentially acted as a residency (but with better pay) and if I'd had the opportunity to complete one as a new grad I would have taken it, but I'd have less than 0 interest in a MSN to DNP program that included a required residency.
Which is why the entry DNP programs really need to be fundamentally different than these DNP-for-already-NPs programs. But that doesn't make for as tidy a sell. Sigh.
Anyhoo, love your blog!!! Thank you for existing!!
i agree. i am a student np at one of the top nursing schools in the country, just did a physical exam and diagnosis course,and i cannot believe just how little i really took away. i am in the psych np track, but the future fnps in the program got the same education as me this quarter. it is hard to believe how much it is lacking.
thanks for the blog!
Apparently other NPs understand how mortifying it is to realize on your first day of practice you were never even taught how to interpret a UA
In hindsight, I find it horribly ironic that while my NP professors were lobbying state government for more independent practice, they neglected to teach the skills needed for this! Example: today we will learn everything about chest x-rays in 30 minutes and never discuss again. BTW, the discussion is led BY ONE OF YOUR CLASSMATES
On the plus side, I own an impressive set of research texts my husband uses for counterweights in his workshop
I am in the first class of BSN to DNP program at my university right now. Throughout my nursing education, I always wished we would dig a little deeper and focus a little more on the "why" of things. Also, as mean as some recent publications of the AMA have been, they make a point that maybe we should all have a little primary care basis before we specialize. And, I don't know, have the same organizations certify us?
I am currently going into Women's Health, and am drawing heavily upon my med/surg experience for the primary care side of things.
I'm late to the discussion, but we do have a, relatively new, FNP residency program at Family Health Center in Worcester. 2nd in the country.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who feels somewhat cheated by her education! My expectations about what I was going to learn and experience, and what I actually experienced were DRASTICALLY different! I had horrible clinical rotations. I learned very little. I was basically thrown wherever I could get in. We had to help find our own clinical sites and often these sites weren't useful.
Totally agree! I attended a very prestigious (and expensive) FNP program and feel like I learned little more than in my BSN program. Entirely too much emphasis on theory (which theorist will I incorporate in my practice...Um, none. I want to safely see, diagnose and treat my patient) and paper writing. Not every NP wants to go into primary care, some of us would like to do specialty care. I graduated and passed my boards 4 months ago, got a job with an ED physician group, and have been practicing on my own for the past month. My 2 month orientation period (at half the pay) was only slightly helpful. Aside from a few courses I've taken on my own in suturing, it's a fly by the seat of your pants existence. I'm learning alright, but I would have felt much more prepared if my NP program would have focused on what is relevant in providing care...and it's not how to write an APA paper. Ekg and xray interpretation, stirring, I&D, and digital blocks would have been helpful, at least as an elective course. Thank goodness for YouTube!
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