CNA to RN

[dmjacobsen]

Further, if there are only something like 5-6 programs in a one-year schedule in a highly competitive field like NP studies, and the two that come to mind are from Tier I national universities, getting admitted to one of them – probably against nurses with impressive clinical experience and professional recommendations – will be another choke point in your plan.

This. A thousand times this.

NP programs, especially highly-competitive ones like Vanderbilt, place a lot of value on experience. Even in my less-prestigious NP school, this is true. I applied for their program and got in on the first try with a less-than-stellar academic record, but with 6 years' experience under my belt at the time of application. A friend of mine -- who started with me -- had been applying for 2 years straight before she was accepted. She graduated from a highly-regarded (at least locally) health sciences college, managed a 4.0 GPA for the entirety of her BSN, and was repeatedly rejected. After she got 2 years' experience, she was golden.

I'm still not sure what exactly OP is going to accomplish here. OP does not want to be a clinician, but wants to find a "placeholder" MD that will own 51% of the corporation while doing none of the work. Who's going to do the work, then? I'm guessing OP will hire some midlevels to work in the practice, but that's just wasted income when you have two practitioners who aren't even using their license. The only way that this scenario would be profitable would be if there were multiple clinic sites (i.e. the Doc-in-a-Box model) overseen by OP and the placeholder MD. Again, however, if you have someone at the helm of this operation who has no clue how things are done by the grunts on the ground, I can't imagine how this organization would be successful.

But, I guess I'm digressing from the original purpose of this thread.

All in all, PA is still the way to go. OP will *not* be able to get into a one-year MSN/FNP. It simply will not happen without years of experience as an RN, which will delay entry to and graduation from the program to a point far beyond the potential graduation date of a PA program. If the goal is not to practice medicine independently -- or at all, as the case may be -- then NP is not needed. If you need a physician to own 51% of the business anyway, then you might as well use them as your supervising physician.

Here's a breakdown, again, of how long each program will take:

RN alone = 2 1/2 years minimum, for an accelerated program (1 year pre-req's + 1 1/2 years RN program)
NP = 4 years minimum (assuming 2 1/2 years for RN + 1 1/2 years for NP)
PA = 3 years minimum (1 year for pre-req's, 2 years for PA program)

If you're going to spend that much time in school, might as well spend the extra 6 months and come out as a midlevel.