 So for those of you who are new to my channel, I do true life series where we talk about various different things from being a minority PA student to being an emergency medicine physician. And this true life series today is going to be about being a family nurse practitioner. So if you have not seen any of those other true life videos, I will leave a link in the description box below to my true life playlist where you can just kind of binge watch all of those videos, but welcome. So I'm excited you guys for you guys to meet nurse Liz. She is a family nurse practitioner, as I said, and I'm really grateful to her for actually agreeing to do this video and just give you guys some information on what it's like to be a family NP. So she is a recent family NP and she's going to get into all of that in this video. I really hope you guys like what you see. She has her own YouTube channel, so I will leave a link for that in the description box below as well, where she talks about her journey as an NP and her work-life balance, and she also does vlogs. So please go check out her YouTube channel. Give her a subscribe and like some of her videos like this video as well. And I hope you guys get some good information without further ado. Here's nurse Liz. Hi, my name is Liz. I am a family nurse practitioner, and this is my true life. So I was super indecisive about what I wanted to be when I grew up and didn't actually even decide to be a nurse, let alone a nurse practitioner, until I was pretty much a senior in college. I had been a pre-med major, but after talking to my guidance counselor and talking over, you know, I want to be a nurse instead of a doctor, we had decided that it would be a quicker transition to actually get me to graduate with my current degree and then tack on an accelerated bachelor's science of nursing degree to get me to the nursing rather than switching majors at that point. So I piggybacked my accelerated BSN program onto my undergrad degree, which was in neuropsychology. The accelerated nursing program was 18 months long. And after I graduated from that, I was able to take the NCLEX, which is the certifying board exam for nurses, allowing you to be a registered nurse. I then found my first nursing job at a hospital. I was working on a med surge unit that focused on like liver, GI, kidney issues. I worked there for a little over a year and a half. And then after that, I transitioned to working on a pediatric inpatient cardiology unit where I worked until I became a nurse practitioner. So I had been working as a bedside nurse for about two years before I kind of came to the realization that I wanted to be a nurse practitioner. So that whole application process was about a year. And then the family nurse practitioner program I chose was a three year part time program. So I worked full time for the first two years and then part time in the last year of the program, which was doable because the program was part time. I also had a baby during that. That was an adventure. At the end of school, I graduated in May. I took my board exam in the middle ladish part of June. And I got my first job and started about a month after I passed my boards. So for the whole time from when I graduated as a nurse until I started working as an NP was about six years. But that was just my case because I wanted to get some nursing experience in there first. And I didn't even know I wanted to be a nurse practitioner. So that would have been really, that would have been hard to go to school for something you didn't know you wanted to do. So nurse practitioners are becoming more and more specialized as the years kind of develop. It used to just be like, oh, you're a nurse practitioner. Now there are many different types. So the big basic breakdown of types of NP's are family nurse practitioners, adult gerontology nurse practitioners, adult acute care nurse practitioners, pediatric acute care nurse practitioner. I'm just going to say NP that's quicker. Pediatric acute care NP, pediatric outpatient NP. So like primary care, women's health NP's and psychiatric mental health NP's. Now there are other ones that I know there's like oncology. You can kind of get a certification in. Some people can have an emergency department NP certification and there's I'm sure there's going to be a ton more that come out all the time. But those are kind of the big ones. I personally decided I wanted to be a family medicine nurse practitioner after working as a nurse on that adult med surge unit. So my first job, we saw countless patients on my floor that were in the hospital as a result of poorly managed chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia. And I just found that they had an absolutely horrible understanding of their disease process and didn't really understand like how they even got there. I just felt like they had a huge lack of primary care education, which ultimately led them to their hospitalization because they didn't understand their healthcare. They didn't understand what was going on with their body and they were just like, I don't know, like they had no idea. And I will never forget, there was a turning point where one day I came in and I had this very sweet woman as my patient and I walked into her room and she was just sobbing and she was in the hospital because she had developed an infection in her foot and they actually had to amputate her entire foot. This end, this was all a complication of really completely unmanaged diabetes. And she was just sobbing to me and she said, they're telling me this is because my blood sugar is high. She was like, I don't eat sugar cubes. I don't understand how there's sugar in my blood. She literally thought that you had to eat sugar to get your blood sugar elevated. And I just remember being like, oh my gosh, I felt so bad for her. She obviously had no understanding of her disease process. And I ended up starting my application for N. P. School like that night because I was like, I feel like I want to try to fix this. I want to go and be a primary care health provider that hopefully educates my patients in a way that they understand. And I feel like they can conquer their own health care and not end up in the hospital thinking that they're eating sugar cubes. And that's why their toe fell off. So I just this last weekend actually hit my first year of working as a nurse practitioner. So that was super exciting. My first day on the job, I was absolutely terrified. I actually have a blog where I kind of document my whole life and this whole journey of becoming a nurse practitioner all the way back from when I was in school. So I can leave a link to that down below if you want to see what that week looked like because I took you with me and it was it was an adventure. I was scared. It's so hard in that beginning stage because you're so unsure. You don't know how to do anything. You don't know how to do the charting. You don't know how the office system flows. I just remember being so and you're just unsure of yourself. You know what I mean? You haven't been making decisions about people's health care independently pretty much up until this point. So that was just, there was so much more responsibility and that hit me really hard. But I was also super excited because you'd worked so hard for so long and I was doing exactly what I had always wanted to do. So that was really fun. And I can tell you now a year later that it gets so much better. It's a rough, rough transition in the beginning. I think for anybody going into an advanced practice provider role, it's just a rough, it's a rough go, but it'll be okay. You'll get there. I promise. Guys, this is way more complicated than it should be. It's actually really obnoxious to be totally honest. But a nurse practitioners scope of practice differs by state and it is determined by every single state's Board of Nursing. In some cases it's also determined by the Board of Medicine, like I live in North Carolina and it's like we're ruled, ruled. That's a weird way to say that. We are governed by both the Board of Nursing and the Board of Medicine. But I'll just kind of give you the basic overviews of what nurse practitioners can kind of do as a whole. And then the individual states have their own peculiarities. So as a family nurse practitioner, and again, this is complicated because it varies based on what type of NP you are. Like I'm family, so I can see all ages. If you're adult Jero, you can only see like 13 and up on and on. But for me as a family nurse practitioner, I can assess, diagnose and treat patients of all ages, including pregnant women. You can't deliver though. Don't do that unless it's an emergency in your office and then that's a nightmare. And the focus of family nurse practitioners is usually primary care or some kind of an outpatient setting. Again, that will vary by your state. Some states do allow you to work inpatient. But assess, diagnose and treat the entire lifespan of acute and chronic illness. The role is to provide primary care services, preventative care, health education, and to assess long-term outcomes. Again, the setting that you practice in and your autonomy level actually varies by state. So in some states, nurse practitioners have full practice authority, which means they do not need a collaborating physician in some of the states you do. And in some of the states, there's kind of this weird in between area where you do for some and you need more than others. Since I live in North Carolina, I do need a collaborating physician. So I have one of those. So yeah, it kind of varies. But the basic gist is assess, diagnose and treat. It's actually a lot kind of I'm sure you guys are familiar with PA since this is a Donna is a PA. It's very similar, except nurse practitioners are segmented usually into their specialties. So there's usually some kind of a restriction on the practice in terms of the setting and the population. And I know PAs don't really happen. So there's a big difference there. So what is a typical day on the job look like from clock into clock out? So when I get to work, I usually take a few minutes to just really click glance at the messages that have come in since the last time I worked, either from patients sending them in on the portal, calling in or from other staff, I then check on any super time pertinent labs, imaging results that I had ordered. And I knew I was waiting on and I checked my phone calls to see, you know, do I need to call anybody back right now before I start my day? Then I look at my patients that I'm planning on seeing for the day and kind of see what I'm getting myself into scope out what this day might look like. I do work in a family medicine office. So my days are very varied in terms of the types of patients that I see throughout the day. Usually I usually see two to three patients an hour and it's a combination of, you know, acute visits, med checks, lab reviews, preventative health care, physicals, and then people coming in to have like form signed and all that random stuff. When I'm not seeing patients, I'm usually back there charting, doing, I do all the lab review, refills, a lot of the messages for the office. So I spend a lot of time on that going over paperwork. There is so much paperwork and answering any messages that pop up with the MAs throughout the day. I actually have a whole video on where I like take you to work with me in case you are interested in seeing what a day looks like and come with me and join in on that fun. But that's pretty much the gist of how my days go. Okay, so I work super part time. So I'm probably my answer to this is probably going to be different than most people's and I'm the terrible example of the average work week. I work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and 12 to four and every other Saturday morning, I would say that's highly abnormal. Most of my friends who are family nurse practitioners work either four tens during the week or some of them do have an occasional weekend day or they work, you know, nine to five, you know, during the week. I do not take call. I know some people do. That just kind of seems to be practice dependent. Also, some people take call and they around on nursing homes. That seems to be another popular thing in family practice settings, but I personally don't do either of those things. So I do have a family and this would work life balance was hugely important to me, especially since I had none while I was in school and working. That is actually why I chose my super part time job so I could be home with my baby and toddler. So at the moment, my work life balance is great, but then keep in mind I work like not a lot. I do know just from talking to a lot of my friends that have entered the workspace as family nurse practitioners that this totally varies kind of based on what you set up with your employer during the interviewing process and where you set your expectations with them. It makes all the difference in terms of how your work life balance is going to be. So I thought I would give you a couple tips just since I can't really speak too much from experience because I work part time. So I think when you're interviewing, it's super important to ask your workplace kind of what they expect from you in terms of like understanding your work life balance. You know, do they expect you to close all your charts by the end of the day or do they have a little leniency? Are they going to give you admin time during the day built into your week where you can focus on charting and getting all your paper work done and just getting caught up? Or is this something where, you know, talk to the other people at work there and see are you at home every night doing like two, three hours of work because they have you in 15 minute appointment slots all day and you don't have admin time? Ask all of that during the interview I did and I just kind of said like when I'm at home, I want to be home and the physician I work with was like, yes, me too. I'm right there with you. So just assess that when you're interviewing and kind of feel out the culture. I feel like it's usually pretty easy to identify some red flags that would indicate you aren't going to have too much balance because you can absolutely have balance in family medicine. You just kind of have to set that expectation from the beginning and find a place that's willing to work with you on that, I think is huge. So the average salary totally depends on the setting that you are working in and where you live. I know it's kind of like a garbage answer, but just from my quick Google search and from, you know, hearing what my other friends got paid usually between like 85 super low end up to like 150 high end, depending on what your specialty is a year. I will say that all of my friends, they all lived in Michigan and they all accepted jobs for 100,000 a year or more with other benefits. You know, time for conferences, money for conferences, all of that stuff built into it. I obviously make less because I only work 14 hours a week, but I would be about at that 100,000 marker if I did work full time. And I think the biggest tip for money management would be to have like a little bit of fun with it. I mean, you just worked really hard. So like, you know, if you want to go buy yourself some fancy shoes or whatever you're into, go do that, have a little bit of fun. But I feel like most people, including myself, have some really impressive student loans that came along with this nice new fancy degree. So as tempting as it is to go out and like buy all the new fun things and do all of that, I think saving a lot of it and just paying down those student loans would be the best long term investment. But I'm also the worst person to ask this because I know if I was working full time and had like discretionary spending, I my whole house would have new furniture. So do as I say, not as I do. So I think the most difficult part of my job is when patients don't get the care they need or can't get the care they need and it leads to poor outcomes, whether it's because they're just not at the spot in their life where they want to kind of do their part, you know, because you can't do everything for them. You can lead them to a certain spot and then they have to make the decision like I'm going to do this, whether they don't want to do that or they cannot financially afford the care that they need. It's just heartbreaking. I feel like we go into health care in order to help people and make a difference. And when you're not able to do that, whether it's beyond your power for whatever reason, whether it's because they can't afford it, like I said, or they just don't want to do it, it's just sad and it kind of makes you feel like you failed and it's just, it's not fun and you feel horrible for them. And it's, it's just sad. And the best is the total opposite of that. So when you're working with your patients, kind of finding out what their health goals are, you can come up with some solutions together and educate them on their bodies and what is happening on the inside so that we can optimize their health and then they come back and it's worked and they're happy and it's just, it's all, it's a great time. I've absolutely loved forming long term relationships with my patients, you know where they come in and you get to see them over and over again. That's just been so cool and a huge thing I love about primary care. And I just feel super honored to work with people when they are usually at some of their most vulnerable stages where they just like let you in and you can work together to help them achieve their health care goals. It's just super, duper cool. I think one of the big ones is you have to let people make their own decisions and be totally OK with that, whatever they decide. This was super hard for me at first. I would have patients who you know I would do all this research for and I would recommend all of these things and try to modify my recommendations to their particular life and situation and I was like, I thought I had done such a good job and then they either like they just like don't want to do it and you're like, oh, oh, and I would get really sad and I would think that was a reflection on me. And now I've realized my role is more of being a like almost like a tour guide, some kind of a guide where I am there to know about the situation and I should offer recommendations that are based on, you know, the best evidence that we have. It's my job to know that and lay it out kind of like a menu and be like, here you go, here are your options. This is personally what I would probably do. But you get to make your own choices and you know, it's has I can't be sad about it. And I think I've gotten a lot better about that. And just knowing that and that would be my encouragement to you would just be to remember that you can lay out all these options and you can make recommendations and it's your job to stay up to date on all that information. But it's their job to pick what option is best for them. And that is not a reflection on you. Don't take it personally if they're just like, actually, I'm not going to do any of that. Like that's their choice. It's their life. And learning to be OK with that has been hugely beneficial for my mental health where you're not taking ownership of all those feelings. Another thing would be becoming comfortable with admitting that you are not 100 percent sure and need to go like double check and look at your references in order to be sure that you're providing these patients with the best care. In the beginning, I was so self conscious that if I admitted I might not know something that they would think I was totally incompetent. But I've actually found the total opposite that if I'm very upfront and just say, you know what, I'm going to go double check my resources just to make sure we are headed down the right path here. They've been so much more receptive to that. Obviously, you cannot know everything and they know that. So I think just being honest about that and having that communication rather than coming off and being like, well, this is what we do when you're not totally sure. I think that's been beneficial. And last thing I embrace the mentality that you're never going to be caught up as depending on your background and your personality type, I'm very type A. And as a nurse, I was able to like check everything off. Like I have done all my tasks for the day. You're never going to be caught up as a provider. There's always more notes, always more paperwork and just understanding that it's it's okay. It's like you're on a hamster wheel. You're never going to catch up. But as long as your head's above water, perfect, it'll be fine. It doesn't mean you are behind. It's just a totally different practice setting. I'm supposed to be wise and give you advice. Yikes. I think the biggest encouragement I could offer you here is that if healthcare is something you want to get into, no matter what specialty or type of training required is you can absolutely do it. I know a lot of the times it seems incredibly intimidating. Nursing school, MP school, med school, PA school, it's just very overwhelming. But you have to just believe in yourself and know that you can do this. You want this. And I think if you want it enough, you're willing to put in the hard work to get there. Like with the internet, I feel like it's so easy to, you know, scroll through Instagram and see everyone is so much smarter than me. Look at how successful they all are. But you can absolutely do it too. The difference is just, you know, hard work and are you willing to put it in? And if you are, you will be just fine and you are going to be an amazing healthcare provider or professional one day. Just got to be really stubborn and work really hard. Like I'm not, I'm not the best student guys, but I'm really stubborn and I can all study until I know this stuff. So I promise you'll be okay and you'll get there. Also, don't take a job based on the salary. I get asked all the time, like what pays the most? Guys, healthcare burnout is a real thing. It is very prevalent. And if you pick a job based on, oh, this makes me the most money, you're going to burn out real quick. Pick something that you love doing and that you don't mind talking about all day. And, you know, sacrificing a little bit for it, you're going to enjoy it so much more. And go into it with an open mind. If you would ask me when I graduated from nursing school, if I would be a family nurse practitioner one day, I'd be like, no, if anything I would work with like little babies. Ended up not being at all what I was interested in doing. So just go into it with a super open mind and you'll be, you can be like surprisingly delighted with the results. Our friends now we are like, I swear, like Gemini sisters. You're the NPM, the PA. We both love our families. This is really cool. I really liked what you said. And your fricking schedule is sweet. But I do want to spend a little bit more time working myself. So I'm going to take some of those tips that you talked about with respect to negotiating your, you know, your time actually in the office and away from the office as I try to get a job in the very near future. If you guys liked what you see, please go ahead and hit that like button and also subscribe to both my channel and Nurse Liz's channel. If you have any comments for her questions, please leave it in the comment section below. And if you have any comments for me, do the same and you can follow me on Instagram at adana the PA. Thank you Liz so much again for really just sharing all of this really amazing information with all of my subscribers. And I hope and I wish you much success as you continue on in your NP world. All right you guys, thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time. Bye. Hopefully this is helpful for you guys and you learned a little bit about being a nurse practitioner. If you guys have any other questions about being an NP or an FNP, I can leave my Instagram handle down below. I also have a YouTube channel where I have like a vlog of my life as an NP and content videos talking about all sorts of nursing and NP different topics. But thanks so much for inviting me here today. It's been really fun chatting at you. Bye.