NAAHP Blog

Education is the foundation of everything – your career prospects, your career advancements and how you navigate the professional market. Advancements are critical to expanding and this could not be more true as a family nurse practitioner. 

This article aims to shed light on what it means to be a family nurse practitioner, outline the education options and trajectory budding family nurse practitioners have with online courses and then offer some helpful tips on how to best balance work and study life.

What is a Family Nurse Practitioner?

A family nurse practitioner (FNP) is an advanced practice registered nurse. This is a nurse who offers comprehensive care to patients of all ages. It helps if you think about the term ‘family’ and all the ages that this term encompasses. A FNP takes care of the elderly in the family, as well as the infants in the family. Although there are specialized nurses who look at only infants, children, expectant mothers, etc, the FNP is often the first point of contact before being referred to another nurse.

The nature of an FNP is that they are consistently there for the family. Just as you might imagine, having a family doctor who has been with the family for decades, this is much the same with the family nurse. This is someone who is the primary carer for the family whenever they need someone. The benefit of this is that the FNP often knows a lot about the family’s history, purely from being with them for such a long time.

Advancing your FNP career is a worthwhile cause and one of the most common ways today is through online courses, which you will find more information on below.

The Journey of Advancing your FNP Career Through Online Courses

Given that you are likely already an FNP means that you have already done a bulk of the learning. Advancing your career and diving into advanced knowledge usually comes with a master’s in nursing practice or with a doctor of nursing practice (DNP). Those who go directly toward the online DNP family nurse practitioner degree after becoming a registered nurse typically take about 3 years and 4 months to complete their DNP program. Those who come with a master’s are usually able to attain their DNP in about 18 months, as they have already done a large chunk beforehand.

What is a DNP FNP? It sounds and looks like a lot of acronyms, right? Well, it stands for a Doctor of Nursing Practice Family Practitioner Nurse. This essentially means that you are in one of the most advanced roles a nurse can be in and you can expect to be put in leadership positions. It is the highest level of education that you can receive as a practical nurse. It’s different from a PhD in nursing, as a PhD is a lot more research-oriented, whereas a DNP is designed for clinical application. So if you want to move away from the theory and the research, it’s the DNP programme you’re after, as this gets you deeper in clinical hours.

You can either visit an on-site university to attain this degree, however, seeing as you’re already quite far in your nursing career and you are likely already working, it would be smart for you to try to find an online course to help this process. Many different opportunities and challenges come with this, which will not only be outlined below but there will also be a few tips that you can apply.

Benefits and Challenges to Online Learning

One of the biggest benefits of online learning as a nurse is the fact that you can get your advanced terminal degree while continuing to work. Seeing as the DNP takes over 3 years, many do not have the luxury of not working for that large amount of time; therefore, by doing an online course, you’re able to stay at work, gain critical clinical knowledge, make your paycheck but still pursue your online degree.

Another benefit is the fact that you can schedule your time as you please. If you need to put in some extra study time on the weekends, you can, as the online course is there for you 24/7. However, this does introduce the challenge of excellent time management. If you are not good at managing your time, you might find it difficult to know when you need to do what. A helpful tip here is outlining your semester curriculum on a calendar app so that you can see exactly what is due when. That way, you can work from the back to the front and slot in the times you need to set aside to get research papers or assignments done before the due date through clever planning.

This also brings the challenge of motivation. To study online and to pass, you need to be motivated. Seeing as you are at the stage of DNP, chances are that you already have a lot of your own motivation, however, it always helps to get some more. Therefore, you might want to listen to some motivational podcasts or meditations to get you in the zone and give you more self-efficacy.

There You Have It

Other than that, you must keep your head on your shoulders. Make sure you don’t put too much on your plate and try to stay consistent with your work. Slow and steady wins the race, after all.