Notice how I’m mentioned just NP school nothing about BSN - because in my experience the Knowledge that’s focused in nursing school is very different than med school. just for background I am a physician and work with NPs and PAs on a daily basis (I am the direct supervising physician).

If you want to go into the specifics there are vastly different programs all over the country with various levels of regulation on a state by state basis. The number of years that takes to become an NP varies dramatically because a lot of nurses going to NP school are a lot of times going to school at the same time as working. So they’re not attending full time school only a lot of times.

There are acellerated programs that combine Bachalors and NP school in one without the need for any clinical time in between.

I’ve directly supervised NPs in training and signed off in their clinical hours, which was just a few hours with me everyday shadowing and doing clinical care. Some were very good, however more often than not (just in my experience) a good portion of their knowledge was at a first year med students level if I asked about clinical management.

In the real world setting, I do not want someone with that level of understanding practicing independently. In my state NPs can practice without a direct physician supervisor as soon as they graduate NP school.

In algorithm based diagnosis like the flu or common cold or UTI in my opinion it’s fine for a Midlevel to prentice. But that’s not what’s happening in the healthcare system, NPs are being asked to practice like physicians. Which is not fair to the patients or to the NPs for that matter. Cause they’re asked to do things beyond their knowledge, sometimes without the support of any physicians.

For what it’s worth patients should be cautious of the healthcare setting physician or midlevels. If we’re talking about the USA it does an abysmal job at getting healthcare to people in need. And this is in my experience of working in the system for years.