A nurse practitioner can hang out a shingle and call themselves anything they want, without the benefit of residency or fellowship training, no pesky boards either.
BUT, if you’re interested in surgery, you’re better off going the premed/prePA route, since surgeons tend to prefer to hire PAs to assist them, rather than NPs. Has to do with general training mindset of PAs, and the fact that they too had to perform to a certain level in premed weed out classes in order to get into PA school.
There are programs about 15 months long to get a BSN after having gotten a BS/BA in a basic science field. So going from premed to nursing is fairly easy. Going the other way is not. The basic science courses in nursing school, in general, do not fulfill the premed prereqs. So if you change your mind after nursing school, you’d have to do a post-bac premed program in order to apply to med school.
Once you get your nursing degree, you will be able to get a job in nursing. Then you can decide if you want to pursue a APRN. Some employers will even pay part of your costs.
I think the science pre-reqs for nursing are the same. Universities don’t usually have special Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, and Chemistry courses set aside for nursing students. They take the same ones as any other major where those classes are required. Of course, for medical school you would need to go beyond those I just listed.
You can do nursing or “pre-med” coursework at SDSU.
I went to grad school at SDSU. I had a friend who was waffling between speech path and med school. She and I were in courses together.
SDSU has an excellent pre-med advising staff. https://hpao.sdsu.edu
My friend used them and their resources to apply to med schools, they helped her to put together her interview clothing, gave her MCAT resources and access to MCAT tutors, and suggested several community clinics in the county where she could shadow and eventually volunteer with medically indigent patients. She was accepted to several med schools all over the country. She attended the med school program at UCSD.(This was many years ago but the health advising staff helps in all areas.)
The thing that is different about SDSU and med school admissions is that a school like SDSU gives you opportunities whereby you have access to everything if you choose to do it. The med schools take notice of what you are given at a large public university and how you navigate the steps.
SDSU is in a county with a large medically indigent population and affordable Community clinics are up and down the county. (Clinic Locations | Family Health Centers of San Diego)
The opportunities are available.
There is a difference between bio, chem , physics classes that nursing majors take and the same classes offered for science majors.
In general the courses cover different topics and have different emphases–even if they have the same course name. For this reason, med schools will not accept any coursework that’s identified as being for nursing or other allied health science majors.
I stand partially corrected, but there is definitely some overlap. I’m surprised that A&P is not required for med school, only recommended for MCAT. But then, if taken, it’s the same one that nursing students take. Statistics is the same too.
In med school speak: recommended = required (if you want to be a competitive applicant)
Not all stats classes are equivalent.
Statistics for premeds needs to be a statistics class that is offered through the math dept, or one of the physical science departments. (Stats for psych may be acceptable too.) Again the reason is the same as the science classes-- although the name of the course is the same, the topics and methods included are different.
yes. nursing is a major, but I can add premed courses to my schedule if I have room (like if my CC credits and AP credits count). So I have to take the nursing courses but can also add additional courses on top of that
AP credit and community college courses in pre-med subject requirements is another minefield that pre-meds need to consider. See the sticky thread in the pre-med section of these forums.
I hope you don’t mean that you are hoping to use AP courses to satisfy medical school admissions requirements because…that’s not going to be accepted at most places. You will be expected to take higher level college courses in any area that you have AP credit in…to satisfy medical school admissions.
Ah…that’s OK. But you also need to check your colleges. If you take a course for nursing…and then take the same course but the one pre-meds take…the school might have an issue with that innterms of allowing both to apply to your degree.
I already asked the advisor about it. They said that I could take whatever extra science course for med school or pa school in addition to nursing workload if I wanted. As long as I take the nursing courses, then I can add other science courses
I would go to SDSU. The problem with traditional premed is that applicants don’t always get into medical school. And they’re stuck with a biology degree they can’t do much with. Nursing is a ridiculously employable degree and will guarantee a good comfortable career if the medical school route fails. Also, nursing degrees meet most or all the prerequisites for most medical schools anyway. You might need to take a few additional bio or chem classes to be on the safe side. An advisor can help you with that.
Not true. The science classes for nursing do not fulfill the prereqs for med school. They are easier, and more superficial than the prereq classes for med school, plus the prereqs for med school do not include anatomy, physiology, or microbiology (one takes these classes in med school). Nursing students do not take the same year of inorganic chem and year of organic chem, year of biology, and year of calc based physics, all with labs. None of the classes are the same. The tracks are totally separate, not interchangeable. If a nursing grad decides to go to med school, they will have to do a postbac, premed course. If a person with a BA/BS in science decides to go into nursing, they would have to take a BS to BSN course.
It’s not that one cannot switch streams, but at this point, for this student, it’s really a choice between do they want to go to nursing school or to an academic, arts and sciences bachelor’s program, while also doing their premed requirements, and try for med school (or PA).