A Word of Caution for Future Nurse Practitioners

In a recent article, the number of Nurse Practitioners (NPs) is rapidly growing in healthcare right now. There are more than 300,000 nurse practitioners and this figure is expected to climb 45.7%. This is the fastest growing profession outpacing the growth of physicians.

However, with the increase in nurse practitioners, there has been an increase in the number of programs to more than 600 schools. 39,000 Nurse Practitioners graduated in 2022. However, nursing education is not standardized.

Many programs are now online and even their clinicals. A Nurse Practitioner student is required to work 500 hours in clinical training but many times the students have to get their own training. Some NP students have expressed difficulty in finding their own clinicals. There is no consistency and it is unregulated.

My concern is that while Nurse Practitioners are very trusted and have better outcomes than physicians, if the training is not up to par, it could lead to more problems, more malpractice cases and license discipline for NPs. I would love to hear your thoughts.