Nurse Practitioner Education: Becoming an Advanced Practice Nurse

If you're looking into a nursing occupation, you already know that you want to care for people, but how do you decide if nurse practitioner education is right for you? The first thing to do is look at all the possibilities for training, economics, and occupational outlook.

Becoming a nurse practitioner is a step up in education and responsibility from an LPN or an RN. While the wide variety of occupational areas is still there, you are now boosting your profession to the level of the diagnostician. These professionals work in hospitals, health clinics, and doctor's offices, but diagnose their own patients, write prescriptions, and order patient care.

 Depending on whether you are in a hospital, clinic, or specialty area of medical practice, as a nurse practitioner you might be called upon to regularly perform many of the following duties:

• Ordering routine tests and taking case history information for diagnosis
• Performing routine incisions and sutures, drainage and wound care, and tissue biopsies
• Executing nasal intubations into the stomach, and gastric analysis
• Testing for insulin and glucose tolerance
• Ordering lab studies and prescribing routine medications

So, what's involved in nurse practitioner education that differs from LPN or RN training? Most programs require prospective students to have registered nurse licensure and to have practiced as an RN for about two years.

Master's level programs add several hours of advanced pharmacology to the RN base of knowledge, along with intensive practice each semester in different areas. There is a practicum in pediatric care, adult care, child health, and care of at-risk populations. All courses are progressively more complex than those offered in registered nurse training.

Upon completion of the master's degree in nursing, national certification by exam is required. There are several national nursing organizations approved to certify nurse practitioners. Two such organizations are the American Nurses' Association and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

 Some associations are specialty certifying organizations for family nurse practitioner certification exam, AGNP, AGACNP, and PMHNP certification Review (online psychiatric nurse practitioner programs). Certification exams are administered throughout the country and cost around $24.99 per Month to $300/ 3 year.

One of the most compelling things about pursuing nurse practitioner education, aside from the value of working with patients directly, is the economic advantage it offers.