Family Nurse Practitioner Programs
(found programs from 301 schools)

Listed below are all of the nursing schools in the US offering accredited Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) programs.

How Do I Become A Family Nurse Practitioner?

The first step in becoming a Family Nurse Practitioner is, of course, to find an accredited Masters of Science in Nursing program with a Family Nurse Practitioner tracks. Fortunately, these are plentiful. There are a number of online options available as well.

The AANP is the primary certification body for Family Nurse Practitioners. You will be able to take the appropriate certification exam at the end of your degree program. As always, make sure to check with the Board of Nursing in the state where you intend to practice, for any state specific requirements.

According to the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), Family NPs represent over 47% of the total population of Nurse Practitioners (currently over 125K total in the US), which makes it by far the largest Nurse Practitioner specialty. Second place is Adult, with close to 20%.

Show me all the Family Nurse Practitioner programs in:

What Does A Family Nurse Practitioner / FNP Actually Do?

As we mentioned earlier, Nurse Practitioners have taken over a lot of the territory previously reserved for Primary Care Physicians, and Family Nurse Practitioners are leading the charge. Family Nurse Practitioners, as you might expect, handle a broad variety of standard medical issues for both adults and children.

Family Nurse Practitioners practice in many different settings - basically anywhere a primary care physician might practice. As we mentioned earlier, a growing number of FNPs are choosing to work in retail clinics, which serve the community from inside of grocery stores, drugstores, or other chains. The "MinuteClinics" in CVS are one example of this. FNPs also frequently take on the role of primary care provider in rural settings, where PCPs are less common and there is a more urgent need for primary care. In most states, Family Nurse Practitioners can practice independently, i.e. without the direct supervision of a physician. A growing segment of Nurse Practitioners have even started their own practices.

There’s a good background article on the Nurse Practitioner role, with a focus on the primary care aspect, on the AANP website: AANP article. Primary care has always been the larger focus of the NP role, whether it’s delivered to adult patients, or children, or the elderly, or some other group. According to the AANP, two thirds of Nurse Practitioners today practice in at least one primary care site.

Learn About Being a Family Nurse Practitioner

BestNursingDegree.com interviews family nurse practitioner and doctoral candidate, Terri Schmitt, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC. Terri has been in nursing for 14 years, and has experience in everything from travel nursing to ICU, school nursing and more. She is now pursuing her doctorate degree through an online nursing program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Below she shares her experiences in nursing.

Q: What is your current position?

I’ve been a nurse now for 16 years. I currently hold a full-time position as an assistant professor for Southwest Baptist University. But I also am a nurse practitioner, and have a part-time clinical practice in a rural family practice clinic that is owned by another nurse practitioner.

Q: What is a nurse practitioner?

A nurse practitioner is a specialty area. I would call it a clinical specialty area, and it’s an advanced practice degree. My training is as a family nurse practitioner, although most of my clinical background has been as a pediatric nurse. It took several years of graduate education, and a lot more clinical time - I equate my graduate schooling almost to my original diploma degree; it was that intense. But I knew where I was headed, and what I wanted, so that’s the route I took.

Q: What is an average day like?

A nurse practitioner degree has allowed me to move into primary care. It’s an advanced, clinical degree, but I do a lot of primary care and patient education, which is what I love. It’s allowed for a lot of autonomy in my nursing practice. When I go to the clinic in a day, I typically see somewhere between 20 and 30 patients: 30 is a very busy day; 20 is a good, manageable day. I see everything from minor illnesses all the way to full physical women’s exams and sports physicals. Some days I may stitch. Some days I may call the ambulance because someone walks in with chest pain, but I try and avoid those days.

I do a little bit of everything, so all age ranges and all types, from chronic disease management to preventative education.

Q: How did you get started in this field and what kind of preparation does someone pursuing this career need?

I just always knew I would go back to school as a nurse. The more I’ve gone back to school, the more I’ve realized I don’t know everything, so it has perpetuated more schooling. I always knew that I wanted to work on the education and the preventative end in primary care. I was an ICU nurse for many years, and I loved that aspect. But preventing people from needing to be in [ICU] is where I wanted to be.

I originally looked at pediatric nursing programs. So many childhood illnesses just follow right into adulthood, and so much of what happens in childhood leads to adult chronic disease. I looked for a good family nurse practitioner program. I looked for something that had lots of heavy clinical in it, and that had good research and statistics. And, I looked for something that had some dedicated courses in specialty areas like women’s health and pediatrics.

Q: In general, are there any specific traits that work well in this career?

There’s a lot, and sometimes I tell my students, you don’t always enter into this education process with every single skill set you need, but you learn it along the way. Leaders are made, not born. You’ve got to have curiosity and a drive to know new things. You’ve got to have tenacity because sometimes it gets hard to finish what you’re doing and balance life.

We always keep our patients in mind. It’s never about me, whatever I do; it’s about the patients. Being willing to listen and being willing to take feedback from patients or faculty and incorporate that into what you’re doing are critical.

Q: What are some of the challenges in the field?

Independent nursing practice is not what it’s cracked up to be. I didn’t enter this because I wanted to be a mini-physician, or something like that. This was just expanding my knowledge as a nurse. I fight battles every day for my patients. I have many patients without insurance, which means that I may know that they need an MRI, but they’re never going to go for an MRI. Many insurance companies don’t recognize us as providers, and therefore if we don’t get paid something, it makes it difficult to see the patient.

I practice in a state - we’re one of three or four - where nurse practitioners still do not have the right to prescribe controlled substances like codeine cough syrup. For my patient with bronchitis, that's going to be something that I can’t give him or her. So there are challenges and workarounds, but we just keep pushing forward.

Q: What do you see for the future of the nurse practitioner specialty?

The practice is continually evolving in baby steps. I’ve seen more nurses organize together to speak for their cause. I’ve seen more acceptance in patients. I’ve actually seen patients seek out nurse practitioners because we spend a little bit of time [with them]. I’ve also seen some more teamwork among colleagues, which is excellent because we all have something to offer the patients. We’re all peers; no one’s better or worse. We all just have a different knowledge set. And the ANA and places like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are really pushing for nurses to practice to the full extent of what they know.

Q: Do you see any impact for nurse practitioners with health care reform?

I think health care reform is long-needed. Like I said, I speak from a patient perspective. I have a rural practice. A large percentage of my practice has no insurance. And then the other large percentage is Medicaid or Medicare, which has posed some big challenges. Health care reform so far has been about insurance reform, which has been drastically needed. Not that companies shouldn’t make money, but the ultimate goal [should be] patient health.

Nurses can step right into that. We’re geared for preventative care and education. It’s not acute care reactive, but it’s preventing us from getting to that point. Nurse practitioners are primed to step in and assist with that aspect of health care. So I’m looking forward to it, I think this will be an exciting time.

Q: Will there be an increased need for nurse practitioners in the future?

Between health care reform and the push for DNP education - which, honestly what has taken me eight years in this process through a master’s degree and a doctoral degree, they’re going to be able to do in three to four years. It’s going to be good for nurse practitioners and, ultimately, for our patients.

Q: Any other recommendations for aspiring nurse practitioners?

I would say, move forward with it. When I started each aspect of my career, especially this last part of education, I thought, ìOh my gosh, this is going to take so long, I don’t want to do this.î And my husband gave me some very sage advice, he said, ìIn five years, you will be the same age as you will be in five years. And so what do you want to have accomplished in that time?î If this is your goal, just start chipping away at it.

Look for programs where they’ll openly communicate with you. I would also be very persistent in taking the GRE, even if the program doesn’t require it, because it shows the program that you’re serious about the application process. It also challenges you to expand your knowledge base. I would also look for a program that’s very heavy in clinical theories and research, because in the end, even though, you might be terrified going into that, you will be so much better off.