Top Online Nurse Practitioner and FNP Degrees

When someone asked you, as a child, what you wanted to be when you grew up, you may have said “nurse” or even “doctor.” However, you probably didn’t realize until you were much older just how many medical career paths there are available to nursing students. One such path is to become a nurse practitioner. Could this career option be right for you?

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses, but instead of just having an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, these nurses have a master’s degree (or higher) in their field. With a master of science in nursing, you have four choices as far as career paths go: clinical nurse specialist, certified nurse midwife, certified nurse anesthetist, or nurse practitioner. Becoming a nurse practitioner is the most common choice, since it opens up a wide number of options in terms of career.

As a nurse practitioner, many of your duties will be the same as they would if you were just a regular registered nurse. These duties depend largely on where you work, which could include facilities such as hospitals, clinics, emergency rooms, nursing homes, hospices, schools, health departments, and private medical practices. Unlike registered nurses, nurse practitioners can evaluate and even diagnoses and treat patients, so they often serve as “point of entry” healthcare providers. Patients with minor medical conditions may never even see a doctor.

One of the biggest benefits of becoming a nurse practitioner is that you can specialize in the area of medicine that most interests you. All nurse practitioners will learn to diagnose and treat common medical problems, but in your specialty, you’ll also learn care for problems unique to your specific patients, making you a more efficient health care provider. Some common specialties include holistic medicine, geriatrics, family care, acute care, pediatrics, mental health, and women’s health. Many of these specialties have board certification programs.

The scope of your work as a nurse practitioner depends on the state in which you live, since this is a state-controlled profession. That means that your licensure requirements and job qualifications depend on your location as much as your skills. In some states, nurse practitioners must work in close collaboration with a medical doctor, while in other states, the partnership is less limiting. In some states, nurse practitioners are even allowed to work completely independently of a medical doctor. All states all nurse practitioners to write prescriptions, which is something that registered nurses without their master’s degrees cannot do.

As you can probably surmise, becoming a nurse practitioner means that you’ll have the opportunity to work in jobs with much higher starting salaries. In many facilities, this is also a great way to work toward a promotion, so if you have aspirations of being a head nurse or taking another nursing leadership position, becoming a nurse practitioner may be right for you. Once you have your master’s degree in nursing, you can also go on to get your doctorate degree or even pursue a career in nursing administration or education.