Nurse Practitioner Education: Challenging Career Training
Registered Nurses often get interested in nurse practitioner education with good reason. Nurse practitioner is the next logical step on the nursing career journey. It provides additional autonomy and responsibility for the ambitious nurses, who want to climb to the heights of their esteemed profession.
There are many specialties in the nurse practitioner realm. You can specialize in neonatal, geriatric, family, pediatric, women’s health, acute care, and many others. The education required to pursue these exciting fields of nursing is a Masters degree, which will take between two and three years to complete if the registered nurse attends school full-time. Many RNs work and go to school part-time and many programs support this flexibility, allowing the nurse to continue earning money and staying current in her practice while also pursuing higher education and more advanced skills.
The coursework is rigorous and challenging. Expect long hours of reading and studying. But there will also be labs and clinicals to contend with. Courses in pathophysiology, pharmacology, evidence based nursing practice, advanced diagnosis, theory courses, health assessment, moral issues in health care, nursing research and advanced practice, health promotion and risk reduction, and many more advanced courses. A solid foundation in science and nursing theory are needed to be successful.
Depending upon the specialty area a registered nurse chooses to pursue in her nurse practitioner training, additional courses can be expected that will zero in on the area of the field the student is seeking expertise and advanced knowledge in.
Nurse practitioners must pass the National Council Licensure Examination – Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN), because it is required for all nurse practitioners. When you are checking out programs for nurse practitioner education, be sure to inquire as to the school’s pass rate for this credentialing exam. Also, find out if they have job placement services and guidance counseling to help you find the job you want once you graduation. Ask about their percentage of graduates who have found a full-time job as a nurse practitioner since graduating.
Nurse practitioners are an in-demand field of nursing. With the health care explosion, more and more health care personnel are needed than ever before to fully care for an aging society as well as a society of individuals with declining health. In this country, more and more people are suffering from chronic illness due to our levels of stress, exposure to toxins, and our poor diet. Nurse practitioners act as educators for patients and families and help patients and families learn how to embrace a new lifestyle to support the health of the patient. They are also patient advocates.
When you are considering nurse practitioner education, you are contemplating a rewarding and stimulating career that will challenge your skills, knowledge, and practice. Nurse practitioners contribute to the care of patients, the body of research and new knowledge to the field of medicine, and to the advocacy of patients and their families. They bring significant contributions to the field of medicine as a whole, and to nursing as a career path.
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