Hello all,
First-time post for me here and I would really appreciate some input into my conundrum. All my life I have known I wanted to work in the field of medicine. At first, I wanted to be a doctor but after 4 years of Bio Pre-Med and shadowing/hearing stories from actual doctor's I decided that it was not meant for me. I did some soul searching and I looked into PA programs and thought this is what I wanted to do. That was until I started working as an assistant to a Psychiatrist so I could get face to face time w/ patients. Let me tell you, it blew my mind and I completely fell in love with psychiatry. In her practice, there are NP's, CNS's and one PA. My doctor and I talked and she mentioned to me PMHNP route since I am not interested in any other branch of medicine. Well my question is, in the field of psychiatry is there and advantage to being a PMHNP rather than a PA? I know PA's go through rotations and cover some psychiatry aspects but they don't really go into detail. Would I benefit more from one rather than the other? I ask because my parent's (old school Mexican immigrants) blew their lid when I told them I was looking into PMHNP (just because there's "nurse" in the title) Honestly, I haven't seen/heard of psych PA's, mostly NP's, CNS and PMHNP's. I would really appreciate the input. Thanks.
First-time post for me here and I would really appreciate some input into my conundrum. All my life I have known I wanted to work in the field of medicine. At first, I wanted to be a doctor but after 4 years of Bio Pre-Med and shadowing/hearing stories from actual doctor's I decided that it was not meant for me. I did some soul searching and I looked into PA programs and thought this is what I wanted to do. That was until I started working as an assistant to a Psychiatrist so I could get face to face time w/ patients. Let me tell you, it blew my mind and I completely fell in love with psychiatry. In her practice, there are NP's, CNS's and one PA. My doctor and I talked and she mentioned to me PMHNP route since I am not interested in any other branch of medicine. Well my question is, in the field of psychiatry is there and advantage to being a PMHNP rather than a PA? I know PA's go through rotations and cover some psychiatry aspects but they don't really go into detail. Would I benefit more from one rather than the other? I ask because my parent's (old school Mexican immigrants) blew their lid when I told them I was looking into PMHNP (just because there's "nurse" in the title) Honestly, I haven't seen/heard of psych PA's, mostly NP's, CNS and PMHNP's. I would really appreciate the input. Thanks.
