Kentucky Family Nurse Practitioner Programs
Are you currently working as a registered nurse and wondering how you can improve your income and career prospects? If you have completed a Bachelor’s degree in nursing, you may consider going through a family nurse practitioner program in Kentucky. Family nurse practitioners provide primary health care services to people of all ages, including the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Becoming licensed as a family nurse practitioner in Kentucky can greatly increase your possible earnings. According to O*Net, the median salary for a nurse practitioner in Kentucky is $84,500. The listed range of salaries goes from $62,000 to $114,300 (O*Net, 2012).
Choosing to work as a Nurse Practitioner in Kentucky requires you to have a collaborative agreement with a physician wherever you work, according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. This is typical in many states, and it allows you to work more closely with doctors to give patients evidence-based care.
There are many aspects to a nurse practitioner’s career. The main part involves seeing patients. You may see patients for physicals or well-child visits, in addition to office visits for sickness or disease. This may involve running tests, prescribing medications, and referring patients to other practitioners. Another part of your job may be supervising and directing the work of registered nurses and nursing assistants.
To learn more about the schools that offer this program, request information from schools below, taking time to choose those schools that interest you most. You will likely need to compare information from several different schools in order to compare the different aspects of each program offered.
Family Nurse Practitioner Program Curriculum
Kentucky offers students a wide variety of nurse practitioner programs to choose from. You might select a program that has daytime, weekday classes if you have the freedom to take traditional courses. However, you can also choose from classes with evening or weekend classes. This frees up time for you to work. There are many classes required in a nurse practitioner program, all of which are designed to increase your knowledge in one facet of nursing care.
Classes that help you give better care to patients include Advanced Health Assessment, Primary Care Issues, and Skills for Advanced Practice. Courses that improve your research and leadership abilities include Epidemiology & Health Statistics and Nursing Leadership. Some of these courses can be taken online, but some include a clinical component that must be completed in person. Some classes offer a certification exam review, which prepares you for licensure by the state of Kentucky.
The majority of schools in Kentucky require around 600 clinical hours. During this part of your schooling, you often see patients and learn about how to treat and diagnose them. Kentucky is unique in that many of its schools schedule clinical hours towards the end of a program, rather than throughout the program.
Financing your Family Nurse Practitioner Program in Kentucky
Going to school as a nurse practitioner provides you with the opportunity to apply for many career-specific scholarship. For instance, the Kentucky Coalition of Nurse Practitioners offers $1,500 scholarships to eligible students that are enrolled in a nurse practitioner program.
Working as a Family Nurse practitioner in Kentucky
Prior to beginning your career as a family nurse practitioner in Kentucky, you have to get your license from the Kentucky Board of Nursing. You will then renew your license annually, which requires you to complete 14 hours of continuing education every year. At least five of those hours must be in pharmacology.
You may choose to work in any number of health care settings, as long as you have a collaborative agreement with a physician that outlines your job tasks and responsibilities. Popular work environments for nurse practitioners include quick care clinics, traditional clinics, and hospitals. Some of the biggest nurse practitioner employers in Kentucky include UnitedHealth Group, Diamond Healthcare, Concentra, and Baptist Physicians of Lexington.
Joining the Kentucky Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives can give you access to valuable job listings, continuing education opportunities, and legislative updates. It also allows you to network with other nurse practitioners.
