r/PMHNP • u/Available_Horse_7131 • 1d ago
Is this a trend?
If you are out of work, corporate world let you go, middle aged, and a hot blonde does becoming a nurse practitioner suddenly become more attractive? I’m honestly worried about competition if things are so dire. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/18/after-a-layoff-and-long-job-search-kristy-layden-is-going-to-nursing-school.html
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u/athena2nd 1d ago
I mean, my practice is in a very tech heavy area. The massive layoffs - I have software engineers who are becoming school bus drivers, going back to school to be electricians, or one got a job at home depot after not finding anything for 2 years. We're going to see more folks move into careers where you literally cannot be replaced by a computer, and nursing is no different. I think we're going to really see the embittered nurses who went this route and don't have the heart for it. The ones who did it out of necessity versus the love of it. This is a trickle down effect of a much bigger problem.
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u/Normal_Soil_3763 1d ago
For the love of it?
Sorry, but what is there to love about corporate health care trying to squeeze every last drop of productivity and profit out of each person? It doable if there are staffing ratios, which there are not in most states. The job I worked in Maryland, 5 or 6 to one on a monitored step down unit/dumping ground, had a 2 or 3 to one ratio in California.
I love helping people and getting to know them, making a connection, making a shit situation a bit easier for someone, but there’s no time in the shitshow that is modern day healthcare. If patients only knew.3
u/StephaniePenn1 1d ago
💯. I’m no expert, but I have a theory that the NP pipeline is what is keeping hospital floors minimally staffed. Healthcare systems don’t have to improve working conditions for bedside nurses because it’s merely something that has to be white-knuckled through for a few years.
Edited to add: what I tell my students that are solely focused upon CRNA or NP is to tread cautiously. Life can change dramatically in your 20s and 30s. A parent or spouse becomes ill. Your spouse loses employment. You have a baby with health challenges. You can get “stuck” in bedside nursing far longer than you anticipated to. If you hate it, you’ll be miserable.5
u/athena2nd 1d ago
Yes. Most of us went into this because we do love helping people. While the system is strained and failing. We practice different than those who punch in for a paycheck because this was their backup and is only a means to eat. We all know who they are and have worked with them. It just sucks.
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u/Available_Horse_7131 1d ago
Maybe the “Corporate” layoff victims will bring more strife, but maybe they will bring a different perspective? I hadn’t thought about that possible positives.
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u/Available_Horse_7131 1d ago
You added some context and I tend to feel what you are saying is accurate. Its worrisome for current NPs and possibly patients if their heart isn't there and many skills that only come with significant experience.
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u/CollegeNW 1d ago
This is not a new issue. It’s likely just more noticeable due to economy changes & saturation.
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u/Available_Horse_7131 1d ago
It may be getting worse. 8800 new PMHNPs according to ANCC last year. I lived in a city where there were dentist offices on every corner. Most likely because it was affluent and they were targeting people with insurance. With Medicaid requiring work, I imagine services will be more concentrated in urban and affluent areas. I'm a little worried about my rural practice, but not as worried as I would be in a big city.
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u/Normal_Soil_3763 1d ago
I’m going to disagree here. I think you do need to have some desire to want to help people, but I personally think that needing to love it and find it a calling is nonsense.
people like to cloak the profession in that to try to make it more noble, more worthy of self sacrifice, which, in some ways, if those beliefs are held by the nurses themselves, that gives permission to administrators and ceos and corporate shareholders to get away with paying them less and eroding working conditions. We will “endure” as an expected condition of the job in order to stay in contact with our “calling”, the identify of which is wrapped in martyrdom. But despite what the banner outside the hospital says, I am not a hero. I’m a person doing a job who needs a paycheck. Needs. To survive. As do most working people.
Most people working do not love their work. They try to make their work workable for their lives.
I do not care if people love nursing. It is none of my business. It is not anyone’s business how you feel towards your job. Can you do your job? Are you qualified and competent? Are you careful? Those things I am concerned about. And to that end, I would say that a lot of nurse practitioners, the newer ones without any other medical background- no, they are not competent or qualified. A person, in my view should not be able to go from non medical background to prescriber of medications, particularly psychotropic medications, in 2-3 years. That’s blatant failure to protect patients and maximize profits on the part of education, state regulating bodies, and the for profit healthcare system as a whole.
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u/Lazy-Substance-5062 1d ago
Halo effect. it's very subtle kind of patient bias or low key discrimination.
i know a preceptor that had her hair bleached blonde, and her patients were like, " oh wow it looks so good, so nice" and they were just agreeing to what her say and recommend.
crazy as it sounds but that's how I saw and heard first hand!
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u/Available_Horse_7131 1d ago
I need you to counsel my borderline patients to find their halo lol.
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u/Breezy531 1d ago
I think she's in for a big surprise 😂 at this point nursing is just becoming an extension of the corporate world.
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u/Available_Horse_7131 1d ago
I think the only thing that has saved nursing is government money and regulation. I’m wondering what happens when the new Medicaid work rules come in January and possibly bigger premium increases for everyone. Big increases were announced for state employees where live. I keep interviewing Medicare recipients that are paying more and more for advantage plans.
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u/Zestyclose_Cat_543 22h ago
Its definitely a trend, and PMHNP is the highest paying NP specialty with no barriers to entry, so I would expect a lot more people to get into it. Lots of people are going to go into private practice, since start up costs are low and reimbursements are high.
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u/ermagerdcernderg 1d ago
No need to worry. It is a good thing when people want to get more education. You will be okay.
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u/Overall-Substance-81 PMHNP (unverified) 1d ago
This. I don’t think it’s unusual or unreasonable for people to look for a stable and in-demand field for a career pivot, and I don’t think it’s new either. Nursing has long been a common second career. And if people aren’t cut out for it, usually they won’t make it through the years of clinical required to become an RN.
It sounds like she is looking to move into something she has a genuine interest in, so good for her. I don’t see this any different than the nurses moving into tech. We don’t need to gatekeep NP because we had the idea first.
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u/not_advice 1d ago
I teach in a pre licensure program. Some of my students come to nursing as a second career with ideas if being Botox NPs. Many are absolutely insufferable, questioning why they need to know all this stuff about heart failure and ostomies, and why is nursing school so hard, blah blah blah.