Student Loans To Become A Nurse Practitioner Are Horrible But Worth Every Penny

Total Amount to Be Repaid– $159,505.59

If I pay my student loans off exactly the same way each month, I will pay the above total amount over the next 25 years. I’ll be 65 years old. Holy Cow!

Is it worth it?

You better believe it. I love my job and would do it all again. I would, however, probably make better choices in my clinical rotations and studied pharmacology a little bit harder. If you plan to work as a Family Nurse Practitioner, get more Women’s health experience and do lots of Paps. I picked up up really fast out here, but there are tricks that I would have loved to have been shown instead of figuring them out “on the fly”. You may also want to pay more attention to pediatrics as well. I tried to get a specific pediatric rotation where I lived as a student, but the office didn’t like the particular college that I was attending. Football politics, go figure!

Do I want to add another three years to this amount with a Doctor of Nursing Practice? Not right now. I will further my education later when the loans are decreased and I can manage to figure out a way to go back to school while working full time as a provider in a Family Practice office. I can’t see going back to school when there will be no changes in the way that I practice and no more money added to my salary. For now, Florida is so far behind other states regarding NP practice and I will wait to see if the effort to return to school will be worth it. I have decided that for me it would not be in my best interest to pursue it yet. One day though…

How do I pay my student loans? I work full time in a Family Practice and I write for other sites such as Nurse Connect.com. Since they have been nice enough to pay me, you all should go over and comment on my entry to their guest blog. That way they will continue to do so. Hint, Hint.

I also am working on a new blog on the Alensa network where I write premium posts that you can read through your cell phone. It’s a new concept for me so let me know what you all think. Not all the posts are listed as premium so you don’t have to pay for each one.

Of course, I also sell ad space to my buddy over at Scrubs Gallery who has help support this blog for the last few years. I am currently working on a deal with someone to buy Nurse Practitioner Notes from me. I also have an Amazon Nursing Store over at www.npplace.com. I’ve been a busy little NP, haven’t I? There are ads on the site such as Chitika that you can check out as well. Barbara over at Nurse Practitioner Business Owner Blog has a very nice affiliate program as well.

Anyone else doing something that has worked well to make some income on the net? I’m always open to new advertisers who like to place ads on my sites as long as they don’t conflict with my current one.

Top 100 Blogs For Nursing Students

I am listed as number 37 on the list of the top 100 blogs for nursing students. I hope to live up to their expectations. Pop over there and see if you are on the list. I will try to put more nursing student friendly articles up soon. I often get hits from different nursing colleges and would love to figure out what they are saying. Any of you that pop over from them, please leave me a comment to let me know! Thanks!

Florida's Advanced Nurse Practice Act 2008

The following is a synopsis of the Advanced Nurse Practice Act. You can find a complete copy here. I know that it’s a little boring to read through, but it is important to understand how your state’s requirements are written. Too often, as a new practitioner, you really can’t find the answers to questions on the internet. I hope to put some of the things that I needed to find on this site.

"Advanced or specialized nursing practice" means, in addition to the practice of professional nursing, the performance of advanced-level nursing acts approved by the board which, by virtue of post basic specialized education, training, and experience, are appropriately performed by an advanced registered nurse practitioner. Within the context of advanced or specialized nursing practice, the advanced registered nurse practitioner may perform acts of nursing diagnosis and nursing treatment of alterations of the health status. The advanced registered nurse practitioner may also perform acts of medical diagnosis and treatment, prescription, and operation which are identified and approved by a joint committee composed of three members appointed by the Board of Nursing, two of whom must be advanced registered nurse practitioners; three members appointed by the Board of Medicine, two of whom must have had work experience with advanced registered nurse practitioners; and the State Surgeon General or the State Surgeon General's designee. Each committee member appointed by a board shall be appointed to a term of 4 years unless a shorter term is required to establish or maintain staggered terms. The Board of Nursing shall adopt rules authorizing the performance of any such acts approved by the joint committee. Unless otherwise specified by the joint committee, such acts must be performed under the general supervision of a practitioner licensed under chapter 458, chapter 459, or chapter 466 within the framework of standing protocols which identify the medical acts to be performed and the conditions for their performance. The department may, by rule, require that a copy of the protocol be filed with the department along with the notice required by s. 458.348.

An advanced registered nurse practitioner shall perform those functions authorized in this section within the framework of an established protocol that is filed with the board upon biennial license renewal and within 30 days after entering into a supervisory relationship with a physician or changes to the protocol. The board shall review the protocol to ensure compliance with applicable regulatory standards for protocols. The board shall refer to the department licensees submitting protocols that are not compliant with the regulatory standards for protocols. A practitioner currently licensed under chapter 458, chapter 459, or chapter 466 shall maintain supervision for directing the specific course of medical treatment. Within the established framework, an advanced registered nurse practitioner may:

(a)  Monitor and alter drug therapies.

(b)  Initiate appropriate therapies for certain conditions.

(c)  Perform additional functions as may be determined by rule in accordance with s. 464.003(3)(d).

(d)  Order diagnostic tests and physical and occupational therapy.

The nurse practitioner may perform any or all of the following acts within the framework of established protocol:

1.  Manage selected medical problems.

2.  Order physical and occupational therapy.

3.  Initiate, monitor, or alter therapies for certain uncomplicated acute illnesses.

4.  Monitor and manage patients with stable chronic diseases.

5.  Establish behavioral problems and diagnosis and make treatment recommendations.

Pull Up The Bottle of Rum (For Medicinal Purposes, Of Course!)

Change of Shift is up once again and I am loving the video version that one of my all time favorite NP bloggers has done with it. I emailed her my link to my submission, but since she gave me the shoutout at the end (cause she lost it ;) I'll forgive it being lately included. I hope everyone enjoys the edition and considers submitting an entry for the next one.

I've Been Interviewed At Empower-You

Pop over and check out a little interview that I did with Empower-You! Make sure that you leave a nice comment or two. I always appreciate feedback and I'm sure they do too..

Body Location Disease Search - VisualDxHealth

Thanks to Barbara over at NP Business Owner Blog for this great clinical tool. I love to look at this in practice and rashes are sometimes very hard to figure out.

Advanced Practice Consensus Proposed By The American Nurses Association

In the June meeting in Washington, D.C., the ANA as endorsed a practice consensus that proposes a standardized model for advanced practice nursing certification and education. This model hopes to allow NPs to be licensed in multiple states more easily. It also hopes to establish independent practice as the norm instead of the exception and under this model ARNPs will be practicing without supervision or collaboration per Jennifer Ford of Advance For Nurse Practitioners magazine.

For most of us, as NPs, this sounds like a great idea and I’m all for independent practice, but I’m not sure that any new graduate NP should be without a collaborator to bounce ideas off of for at least the first year. I still ask my collaborating physician for reinforcement for what I already know but it's nice to hear feedback. Maybe one day when I have several years of practice experience, I may decide to open my own practice but it won't be any time soon.  For those of you who are considering opening your own practice, click on the banner in my header at the top of the page and visit Barbara NP Practice site and take a look around.

 

Complicated Patients In A Family Nurse Practitioner Setting

In the office setting, a family nurse practitioner often sees complicated patients. I have two types of patients on a daily basis. The first is the younger patient who is usually seen for sick visits such as sore throat, ear infection, cough, and urinary tract symptoms. The other type has many morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipids, and COPD, usually in a combination of them.

My last patient of the day had so many things wrong, I had to stop them and ask “what isn’t wrong with you?” Surprisingly enough, they weren’t offended but actually laughed. This type of patient usually has a higher risk of anxiety and depression related to “being sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

It is also a battle trying to obtain old records to see what testing has already been done or if there are any conditions that they forgot to tell me about. Sometimes they have been treated for a condition that they weren’t even aware of. Imagine that!

It’s been getting busier in the office and things are going great! One of my other employers as a floor nurse emailed me and told me about a job. I told them NO THANK YOU! I’m happy as a clam where I am!

Testing BlogJet

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination." -- Albert Einstein

Change of Shift is Up at Nurse Ratched's

Once more Nurse Ratched has done a wonderful job on the Change of Shift!

Guess Who's This Week's Guest Blogger on NurseConnect.com?

Why it's me! Take a gander over at Nurse Connect. com and read about a nurse practitioner's opinion regarding the nursing shortage. If you like what you see, leave a nice comment.
The nursing shortage is a hot topic right now on all fronts from the office, the hospitals, and the nursing homes.
Do you believe that there really is a shortage? Has it affected you in some way? Let me know!