If you’ve ever considered becoming a family nurse practitioner (FNP), you are in good company. About 70% of nurse practitioners who have a population certification area in 2022 chose to get certified as an FNP, according to a report by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners®1
One of the reasons this specialty is so popular is the widespread opportunity—FNPs can work as primary care providers in clinics across the country. They get to see patients for routine healthcare visits and develop relationships with whole families and communities.
Another reason becoming an FNP is so popular is because it’s such a rewarding job. Still, there are some things that I wish I’d known about working as a family nurse practitioner before I started!
If you think this nursing specialty might be for you, here are some things to keep in mind.
1. Your first FNP role might not be your favorite
After you find your first position as an FNP, there’s a lot of pressure to feel like you’ve finally made it to the perfect career. But what if you don’t love it?
This can be hard! Just know that your first job as an FNP may not be your favorite or forever job. This is an opportunity for you to figure out what you do not want and what you do want in your long-term practice.
My first job out of FNP school was in an ER. I quickly learned that the schedule and type of work was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Despite that, I was glad I had that time working in the ER.
I had learned so many great skills while working in the fast-paced role that I could carry with me to all future roles. Procedures are fun – and the ER offered many opportunities to learn and perfect my suturing, I&D, and ortho skills.
Plus, the fast pace of getting patients in and out taught me so much about time management skills and how to be proficient in future roles.
After the ER, I tried a few other roles as well, and it all eventually led me to a position I loved and worked in for over 10 years (until the clinic closed).
Once again, I was at point where I was trying to find my next forever role, but this time, I was much better at knowing what I wanted and didn’t want. Even more so, I knew what type of culture I wanted to be a part of and made sure that was a priority in my search.
I can say, after almost two years of being in my current role, I am loving it.
2. FNPs can work in many different healthcare specialties and settings
The best part of the education as a family nurse practitioner is that you can work in basically any specialty you want!
I have friends that are FNPs and they work in pediatrics, women’s health, orthopedics, cardiology, and so on. With a general education, you can find your passion and the specialty will train you in that unique field. This has always been the joy in nursing—there are so many options if you are not loving the area you are in currently.
For more ideas, check out 9 Types of Nurse Practitioners and Their Areas of Expertise.
3. When you have more autonomy, you are also open to more risk
There is a significant shift in your scope of practice when you move from a registered nurse (RN) to FNP position. You go from filling shifts to having more control your weekly schedule. You become the primary care provider, and while that means you have more authority to make decisions about your patients—it also means you’re exposed to more legal risk.
You have a lot more autonomy over your practice, and you need to balance that with careful attention to how you work with patients and record their visits.
During your clinical rotations, make sure you take note on different ways your preceptors document and practice to be sure you are learning ways to protect yourself while still providing high-quality care for your patients.
4. You’ll need to stay curious and open to education
Nurse practitioners (NPs) have more authority than registered nurses, but you will never stop learning in this field. And when you are an NP, you might have to be more self-motivated to find the answers and insight you need to keep growing.
You won’t be able to learn everything you need to know in school and clinical rotations. Despite this being the case, you need to know how to continue to educate yourself, know how to access your resources while on the job, and never be afraid to consult with your peers.
5. Burnout can still affect you as an FNP
Nurses are used to hearing about burnout, and a great deal of the research on it is focused on registered nurses and bedside nursing. But even as a family nurse practitioner, it’s important to have some burnout prevention in place and pay attention to your wellbeing.
Burnout can be different for each individual. The work can be demanding. The time commitment can be overwhelming. The joy in what you do can be lost.
I love my job. I love my patients. I feel I am very good with my time management. I enjoy my coworkers. Still, I can feel burnout. It tends to happen for me when I put in extra hours to earn a little extra cash. I will pick up some Saturday mornings, completely by choice.
If I do that frequently and skip on getting the weekend reset I need, I will start to feel burnout. The key is to recognize when burnout is present and make adjustments. This will look different for every individual depending on what is causing the burnout for them.
Yes, for me, it is easy right now to just stop picking up extra shifts. But in the past, when I wasn’t happy with my shifts and wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, I had to make a complete job change to prevent burnout. It’s ok to want to be happy in your role; in fact, it’s important to enjoy what you do!
You should absolutely make your nursing career what you want it to be. There are so many options available in this field.
6. Primary care family practice can be amazing, actually
I heard all kinds of stories from other FNPs about demanding primary care environments. I saw some of this in my clinical rotations as well.
There’s a perception that FNPs have to see patients every 15 minutes, you barely get any time with your patients, the charting is never-ending, and you aren’t compensated well for the work you do.
Wherever that perception comes from, it definitely doesn’t have to be true in your career.
I am currently working in a primary care clinic within a larger organization as a Family Nurse Practitioner. I had the flexibility to choose my time slots for my patients.
I, personally, have 30-minute appointments, with all my patients. Some providers have chosen 20-minute appointments for acute/episodic and 40 minutes for physicals.
We get to decide what works for us.
RVU-based compensation (Relative Value Units) can vary pending the work you put in. I will just say, it is much better than I anticipated it to be, and I feel compensated for the work I do.
7. Charting could get a fair bit easier with AI
Ideally, FNPs will get to spend most of their time with patients, not documenting patient visits. Some of that is under your control as an FNP.
Even before having AI for documentation, I set up my own templates to make my charting easier, and I did most of my documenting in the room with the patient. This way, I was getting my best story and when I walked out, most of it was done.
Maybe as technology improves, this is one aspect of working as an FNP that artificial intelligence will make even easier.
Finding the nursing career you love is a process full of change
Our lives are full of change, and the same is true of our careers. Your role as an RN might have felt absolutely perfect for a while. Your role in other jobs might have been the best possible thing for that time.
One of the best things about nursing is how many ways there are to build on to your existing experience and education and make significant changes in how you work, what you do and where.
The most important thing I have found in my career so far is to find a work culture that makes it easy to come to work every day.
If you think becoming a family practice nurse practitioner could help you find that kind of fit, check out Rasmussen’s Master of Science in Nursing, Nurse Practitioner page to see the details about tuition, timing and the FNP specialty track. I’d love to see you in class!
1American Association of Nurse Practitioners® is a registered trademark of American Association of Nurse Practitioners
