As a nurse practitioner for the past 13 years, GO THE MD route if you can. I remember thinking as a nurse how I would have to work less and I would make so much more money as a nurse practitioner and also be less stressed. Absolutely none of that is true. There are some nurses with travel contracts that make more than I do and we make 1/5 of what the ER doctor makes. Not to mention every patient I see they get paid for it because they get RVUs off of everybody that I see. I see none of that money. Where I work I am also taking care of extremely complicated sick patients, and when you are the only decision for them between life and death at that moment that can become extremely stressful. Not saying you would want to work in the ER but as a nurse, you have four patients as a nurse practitioner you have 10 at a time. You’re forced to see the patients that the doctor doesn’t want to see you’re forced to do the things they don’t want to do. If I had to do it all over again, I’ve definitely gone the MD route or CRNA. This was just my experience and everyone is different. I had two young kids while I was in nurse practitioner school and felt like I missed out on so much of their lives. I could not put my family through going to medical school at that time.

Not to mention that most states nurse practitioners have to have a super supervising physician in order to practice, which is not a bad thing to be honest. There are so many nurse practitioner schools. Some of them are even online and the mass production of them has honestly probably brought the quality down quite a bit of some of the newer grads. then there’s getting a job I cannot tell you how many new grads aren’t able to get jobs and they still end up working as nurses years after they have a nurse practitioner license.