Nurse Practitioner / FNP – Career and Education Profile

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Nurse practitioners work in leadership roles in clinical settings, offering high-level care for patients. You’ll work under the supervision of a physician, but most of the time, you’ll work independently.

Job Responsibilities

Nurse practitioners do many of the same tasks as RNs and even LPNs, but your advanced education will allow you specialize your education to work with a certain type of patient or in a specific medical setting. The most popular option is become a family nurse practitioner, a role that you can take if you want to help patients from all walks of life. You’ll serve as the primary caregiver, offering medical care such as annual physicals, basic first aid, prescription administration, nutrition planning, vaccination, and more. IN many states, nurse practitioners can open practices without the direct involvement of a physician, where you’ll handle most cases and refer patients who need advanced care to specialists.

Salary and Career Options

According to Payscale.com, nurse practitioners generally earn between $69,754 and $91,823 annually, but a number of factors can effect the salary your offered. If you open your own practice, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can earn. Becoming a family nurse practitioner is also not your only choice. You can also specialize in a different area of nursing, such as critical care, geriatrics, or trauma/emergency care. Many nurse practitioners start as an RN working in one of these specialties and go back to school to become a family nurse practitioner so they qualify for leadership positions.

Educational Requirements

As of right now, you meed a master’s degree to become a nurse practitioner, but in the future, you’ll actually need a doctorate to work in this role. Your educational program will include advanced nursing classes that also focus on management and administration, and after graduation, you’ll go through a state certification process, which entails gaining experience and passing a nursing test, before working as a nurse practitioner.

LPN to RN College Programs

While several schools have online nursing degrees available, few offer LPN to RN programs. What's the good news? We have listed some accredited schools below that do offer the program in addition to schools with other bridge programs available. Find out more information and contact each school by using any of the links below.

Indiana State University—Indiana State University offers a robust online program designed for LPNs wanting to become registered nurses and earn their BSN degree. Since ISU's credits transfer to over 80 campus majors, this is an ideal program for people wanting to open opportunities for their career down the road.

The College Network—The College Network is a partnership with several universities and organizations like the National League for Nursing that focuses on online education and programs, with several courses for nurses or those interested in a nursing career. Specifically, TCN helps students prepare for their PN and RN licensures and move on to earn graduate degrees.

Other Nursing Degrees

Walden University—Walden University is typically a graduate school with several masters and doctoral programs available, but they do have BSN and RN to MSN bridge programs available. Walden is based out of Minneapolis and offers several options in transferring your previously earned credits to and from (or even within) the school.

Kaplan University—Kaplan University is one of the nation's largest and leading online educators and offers several bridge programs for registered nurses to earn their BSN or MSN degree. If you have previously earned credits, Kaplan makes it easy for you to transfer to any one of their undergraduate or graduate programs.

Herzing University—While Herzing University does not offer an undergraduate nursing degree, it is a great choice for working nurses wanting to pursue leadership positions in Nurse Education or Management. With over 10 campuses and 45 online programs available, Herzing has a massive network that makes it easy to transfer to or from the school.

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