I’m a Family nurse practitioner, work emergency department exclusively. Have done hospitalist/internal medicine but didn’t care for it.
Been in medicine for 12 years
My best friend works cardiology as a nurse practitioner, and I can assure you he knows way more about cardiology than most doctors that aren’t cardiologist
Physicians assistant vs NP? Both are basically interchangeable truth be told. Just two different routes to get to the same place. There are minor differences, but I have never worked anywhere that they did any different job or were paid any different. PA go into school with little to no medical experience. NP is expected to have experience and be knowledgeable going into school. So the training in school is a little different at times based upon what you are expected to already know.
In my ER there are 7 mid level( NP and PA). 4 of which are NP and 3 are PA. All can do the same job and are very good at it. We see everything from simple colds to strokes and heart attacks. Same as the docs.
Training time for both is about the same.
about 2 years for prerequisites, 3-4 years for BSN, 2 years for masters training. Expect it to take 6-8 years depending on the school
Pay wise it varies across the board depending on the field you work in, how busy your site is, and the patient population( are they indigent and have no insurance and cannot pay, or do they have insurance and will pay the copay or deductible).
Good thing about ER is we don’t care if you can pay or have insurance, we just do what needs to be done. We honestly don’t even know if you have insurance or not as providers in ER unless your a psychiatric patient( have to know to get you to a facility if needed)
Avg pay here for Mid levels is probably 95000-100000. Upper end is around 170000. My company pays extremely well and offers incentive bonuses based on productivity, patient satisfaction, and metrics.
Nurses with a masters of nursing but are not nurse practitioners make significantly less here. 65000-80000 at best.
To me I love patient care, hated management. So it’s worth it to me to be a FNP, and my job pays pays twice as much as a masters prepared RN doing education and management.
Where is medicine going in the future. Hard to tell honestly. Sometimes good changes come about and I think things are looking up for the future, but most of medicine is managed by corporate management groups that are hell bent on making big profits. Which doesn’t lend itself to good patient care
If you have specific ?’s shoot me a PM. Be happy to discuss. Done it all from CNA, floor nursing, ICU, nursing management, to emergency nurse practitioner. So I have a good bit of experience
