Career Spotlight: Nurse Practitioner
Tell us a little bit about being a Nurse Practitioner.
I am a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner currently working in Pediatric Urology. I got my Doctorate in nursing and a Master’s in Health Science Clinical Research. I’ve been doing this for twelve years.
Tell us a little bit about Urology.
Urology is just your plumbing, basically. We always say that we are just glorified plumbers because we deal with everything kidneys, ureters (which drain your kidneys to your bladder), and then out- so basically all of the plumbing in your system.
How did your career begin and how long did it take to get there?
I originally got my undergraduate degree in just biology, and didn’t really know what I wanted to do at first. I thought I wanted to go into pediatrics or neonatology as an M.D. field, but got scared away when I realized how long residency and fellowship was going to take. So I had a really cool mentor who said “have you ever thought about being a nurse practitioner?” and I kind of said, “what is that?”
They explained that you’re doing many of the same things that a physician does but you’re just trained very differently. So I got a second bachelors through an accelerated bachelor’s and master’s program, so three years later I got my doctorate and 9 years after that for the clinical research degree on top of that.
What’s the path to becoming a nurse practitioner (NP)?
If you are smarter than me and figure this out early, you can do nursing as your undergrad and then you’d need a master’s degree to get your NP, which is generally about one or two years depending on the program. There are a lot of accelerated programs that would entail 2-3 years and then you’re done, and if you want to get the doctorate on top of that you can usually just add on one year or so.
So there are a lot of options, which is great. And there are also a lot of options with in-person np programs and virtual.
Where do you work now and how long have you been there?
I am currently at Duke Univesity, and I have been here for 7 years now, and before that, I was in Southern California also working in Pediatric Urology. I did take a unique shift within the nursing industry; I used to do clinical practice in Urology every day, 5 days a week, and recently about a year ago, I stepped back and do more teaching, research and only do clinical about once a week. You can have more flexibility as you build your career.
What is a typical day in the life of an NP?
Given where I am right now, I have three typical days. On a clinical day, I’ll just go to my clinical practice. I get to make my own schedule, which is really convenient, so I drop off my kids, at school and then I go to the clinic. Being in a sub-specialty as well, I think we have a lot of flexibility, and I’ll see maybe 9 patients throughout the day, so I get about an hour per patient which is really nice.
Thursday is when I teach, so a lot of online Zoom meetings or in-person teaching physical assessment classes.
The majority of my days now are spent doing research, so I’m writing grants with the NIH or the CDC, writing up papers, doing clinical research, either recruiting my patients and consenting them or getting them involved with trials. So a lot of different layers, a lot of different days.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I think for me there are two things: first, the flexibility. You’ve got that nursing degree being you, there is so much flexibility in your career path. You can do clinical. You could fall back and just be an RN somewhere. You could do administrative, like hospital admin, or nurse managers on different boards or units. I went the research route. You could be a teacher at a nursing school. I know people who work for private clinical research companies, or distributor medical companies. You can do so many things with this degree.
The other thing I love is the collaboration. But it’s not just with your patients and your families, but with other prodivors, with researchers. It kind of just opens you up to being able to do so many different things, for you in your career but also for your patients.
What is your least favorite part about your job?
Dealing with insurance companies is by far my least favorite part of my job. I’ve practiced in three different states now, New York, California and North Carolina, and they all had very different issues with their Medicade, Medicare, kind of government insurances. I think having to deal with the barriers that are set up for different things for different patients is definitely the hardest part.
What would you say to a student who is thinking about becoming an NP?
Oh definitely do it! It’s awesome. You can get into so many different things in the medical field with an NP degreen. You’re not in school quite as long as an MD, and you get to go into a lot of the same things. We don’t have as much debt, although we don’t necessarily make quite as much money either, so there is a handoff. As far as the lifestyle, you tend to have less on-call time, more weekends, holidays, that kind of stuff. It’s a really rewarding career, and a smart way to go.
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