Ok, so in my last post I mentioned that I’m a Jaguar because I’m going to school at IUPUI. Well, that’s only going to be true for another month or so. Here’s why:

I applied for the Family Nurse Practitioner Program. I did this so that I could work wherever I wanted as a NP, be it a drugstore, doctor’s office, hospital, etc. I was also looking ahead to possible medical missions. I began speaking with IUPUI about the Nurse Practitioner program back in August. They knew back then I wanted to be a FNP. I handed in my application at the beginning of February.

The secretary for the nursing program emailed me in mid Feb and asked me if I would be interested in talking to the head of the Adult Nurse Practitioner program. I said, “Sure.” On Monday the 22nd, I drove to IUPUI and met with her and another instructor from the ANP program. I thought it was just an informational session, helping me to explore my options. After listening to her for 45 minutes, she finally said something that startled me. It was when I asked her for clarification that I found out that ANP wasn’t one of my options, it was my ONLY option. Evidently the head of the FNP program only wants RNs with pediatric experience (of which I have none). So I was summarily rejected. I asked the ANP head, “Just to be clear, you are saying that I can be an Adult Nurse Practitioner at IUPUI, or I can go somewhere else, is that right?” She said yes. She said I could have a week to think about what I wanted to do.

She called me a week later and I told her that after talking with a few FNP’s, I had determined that I didn’t want to go to school for the exact amount of time and pay the same amount of money to get a degree that was “less of a degree” than the FNP. See, FNP’s have what’s called a “Scope of practice” which determines what they can and can’t do. An ANP can do everything a FNP can do, except they can’t treat pregnant women or anybody under the age of 11. She tried to tell me that it wasn’t less of a degree, but in the interview I found out that both she and the other instructor were FNPs. During the interview she kept telling me all the great things about being an ANP, when she wasn’t even an ANP. I advised her that if she wanted people to get interested in the ANP program, she might want to get a ANP to talk to people.

So in calling it “less of a degree” I think I kind of burnt that bridge. What am I doing now? I’m finishing this Statistics class and my Children’s Literature class. Thankfully my hospital has a tuition assistance program so I will get fully reimbursed for taking these classes.

Now I sit back and try to figure out what I am going to do. Should I pursue the FNP at another school? Ball State and Indiana State both have attractive online FNP programs. Or should I forget about it and just stay an RN? I don’t know yet.