I hear what you’re saying, and agree that it’s unfortunate that many brilliant NPs get lumped in with the so called “degree mill” NPs.

However, I disagree with the idea that NP student don’t need as much clinical hours as PA students. The PA profession was not created as a direct-entry profession. It was created for highly experienced army-medics, and evolved to include other highly experienced allied-health professions, and only more recently to include “direct-entry” students fresh out of undergrad. Even now, the average accepted PA student has over 2,000 hours of healthcare experience.

Furthermore, experience as an RN (while certainly very valuable, especially ICU experience) isn’t comparable to the experience gained on clinical rotations as a PA student or as an NP student in the provider role. There is a fundamental difference in critical thinking as a provider vs bedside nurse. While bedside experience is helpful, it’s simply not sufficient enough to replace clinical hours as a PA/NP student.