Nurse Practitioner – Master of Science in Nursing-Nurse Practitioner
The demand for licensed nurse practitioners has been and is expected to continue growing well into the future. The continual rising of health care costs have forced the medical offices and insurance companies to find new ways of providing care at a lower cost. One way they have found to successfully achieve those cost-cutting measures is through the expanded use of the nurse practitioner.
These medical professionals start out as nurses, who have already had at least one year of previous nursing experience. They then pursue additional education and degrees and are able to become licensed nurse practitioners. Through the advanced training, they are able to take on additional roles beyond what a nurse normally is able to do.
By performing many of the duties normally done by the doctor, the nurse practitioner is able to free up the doctor to see more clients. Since the doctor involves a much higher cost structure, anything that the nurse practitioners are able to diagnose and treat with the patients, the better it is for the costs and profit of the medical facility. These nurse practitioners are able to decide their desired work by the specialization they choose under their master of science program.
They can choose to go with the generalist, under which they would operate basically the same way that a primary care doctor can. They also can choose to specialize in a certain field as well. Some that research uncovered are: gerontology, family, diabetes care, as well as others.
Most of the careers that are sought after by graduates of a nurse practitioner program, also have the nurse practitioner title in them
- Gerontology Nurse Practitioner
- Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
- Private Practice Generalist
- Medical Office Nurse Practitioner
- Diabetes Nurse Practitioner
- Neonatal Nurse Practitioner
- Community Health Clinic Caregiver
All of these nursing positions will find that they have a higher salary than other nursing positions, due to the extended education that they have over others.
Below are some of the best schools offering online degrees for completing the nurse practitioner program and preparing them for the licensing exam. There are different specialties in the list as well as different class formats and taking different amounts of time. If you are considering this degree, consider the following options:
- Master of Science in Nursing-Family Nurse Practitioner: (Highly Recommended & Online!) The online degree at Kaplan University allows the student to work their higher education goals into their current responsibilities in life. This program assigns a mentor to each incoming student to guide them through the broadening of their perspective of improving the quality of health care their patients receive. They focus on the expanded responsibilities that a nurse practitioner would have after graduation versus the ones they had previously as a nurse.
- Master of Science in Nursing-Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner: The University of Cincinnati has designed a master program for nurses interested in specializing in women’s health issues. The degree focuses the studies and research of this program on diagnosing and treating the special needs of female patients. The online program is part-time due to the need of most students to continue working in the nursing profession while working towards the new degree. UofC is featured in our top online masters programs report for 2017.
- Master of Science in Nursing: The nurse practitioner option at Duke University School of Nursing provides the ability to choose from three concentrations. They include adult primary care, family, and gerontological fields. This program is almost entirely online, but some of the specialization courses require campus visits. They have admissions for 3 semesters during the year, so they do not require incoming students to wait til the fall for a new program to start up.
- Master of Science in Nursing-Family Nurse Practitioner: This online program at Saint Joseph’s College is comprised of 15-week online classes that are designed to incorporate experience with the new materials being taught. They cover ethics, research, policy, and many medicine-specific subjects necessary to the position. There are 80 hours of classwork, as well as 600 hours of clinical work, that are done in the students current facility. They work to provide education and support for patients in a way that is not common for doctors to do.
- Master of Science in Nursing-Family Nurse Practitioner: The Medical University of South Carolina incorporates complex clinical case work with practicing physicians in order to gain the comfort of dealing with these partners in health care on a different level than they are used to as a nurse. The program in an online program, and provides the added flexibility of being able to be done on either a part-time or full-time basis. Clinical work is set up on an individual basis for each student, and must cover a minimum of 810 hours.
- Master of Science in Nursing: The University of Texas at Arlington offers a program to earn this degree and provides several specialization fields to choose from. Available are: Acute care, acute care pediatric, adult-gerontology, family, neonatal, pediatric, and psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners. This broad range of options makes it likely to have most of the fields available. The Psychiatric/Mental Health study focuses on the entire life span and the many mental health issues that apply during the various phases of life. They combine best the combinations of clinical dialogs and prescriptive solutions to find the best mix for individual patients.
- Master of Science in Nursing-Adult-Geriatric Nurse Practitioner: The advanced degree program at Maryville University involves the training of existing nurses for advanced positions in health care services. The program includes 36-45 credit hours and involves studying patients in various health conditions during the course of the program. The skills taught are designed to prepare the students for the licensing tests they will need to take after graduation.
- Master of Science in Nursing-Pediatric Nurse Practitioner: Saint Louis University has several options of nurse practitioner programs. The pediatric option still enables students to benefit from the flexibility of an online program while getting the expanded course offerings of a school of nursing. There is a required residency that occurs on campus that takes 3-4 days towards the end of the program. The clinical portion of the class will be completed where you live, in a clinical setting established between school faculty and medical professionals in your area.
