Surprise Placement

At school, we have one on one placements with a preceptor. This semester, I have a placement with a geriatric nurse practitioner. We had the option to sign up for a summer placement, but I did not as I had unclear summer plans.

Last night I got an e-mail from the placement coordinator that she had a summer placement for me, one with an OB and one with a pediatrician. OB and pediatric placements are DIFFICULT to get around here. If I turn this down, I may not have another chance to get one. Placements in general are hard to get around here. There are around 1,000 NPs in the state and maybe 300 NP students graduating every year. So many of our placements are with MDs or PAs. The pediatric placement is with a NP, which I prefer.

As I just turned down a summer camp job that I did not feel qualified for, I do have the chance to take the placement. The one problem is that I am flying to Kazakhstan in May for 2 weeks to visit a friend and that means that I will have to make up 32 hours of clinical; my preceptors may find that they are slowed down too much by having me there extra time every week. So I'm in crossing my fingers and toes and hoping that this can all get worked out.

What a change it will be, nursing home to OB and pediatric; I'm going to have to review a lot!