Post MSN FNP Certificate Online Info Session

Hi everyone, welcome to the information session tonight. I am going to wait just a few minutes to let people log in and then we will get started.

Hello.

Hi, Sherry.

Hold on, I can't. I think I have my sound turned down.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you.

OK, great.

I was going to give everyone a couple of minutes here.

Sherry, if you can mute yourself while I'm talking, I think that'll stop some of the background. And it's always a little confusing because when it's green, that means that you're muted. So confusing.

Hit audio.

Can you? OK can.

I do.

Can you hear me now?

I do, yeah.

OK.

I can't hear you now, so.

Alright, well, now that we've done a sound check, which is very important when we all go ahead and get started. My name is Joni Ritzke, I am one of the enrollment services Advisor here at UC and I work on all of our online nursing graduate programs. But tonight we are going to be talking specifically about the Postmasters FMP certificate. So we'll do a bit of an overview on Doctor Donauworth who's the program director.

We'll talk about the program and the specialty and then we'll get to the application process. So lots to cover.

OK. So I always like to start with the vision, mission and core values of the College of Nursing. And more specifically the core values. They are collaboration, accountability, integrity, respect and excellence. And those are things that we really hold in a high regard. And we hope that you see all of that from the moment you request information from myself or one of my colleagues and you are emailing or texting with us.

Um, all the way through to, you know, hopefully getting an offer for the program, confirming your spot and through to graduation. So we again really hold these very highly and want to make sure that all of our students are feeling these throughout the entire program and also kind of presenting those same values themselves when they're out in clinicals and kind of when they're out practicing when you're done.

Just a few fun facts about the College of Nursing. We were the first in the nation to offer a BSN degree. So we have a really strong history in the field of nursing and we've been providing graduate level education online since 2007. So this isn't new for us. Offering an online program, we're very well established in that sphere and we've kind of worked out the kinks with our classes. So we definitely know what we're doing.

Felt organized. It's not something that has just started for us in the last few years, but again, we've been doing it for a very long time. In fact, 84% of the College of Nursing students attend their program online. So even our local students in the Cincinnati area, a lot of them will do their programs online. Obviously, it's a lot more convenient, a little more flexible. So we've got a really large number of students doing our courses online on kind of whether they are.

The whole order across the country.

And also all of our full time faculty are certified and the special team which they teach. So when you get to your kind of FMP specific classes, you will be taught by someone who is an FMP themselves and they're still currently practicing. So all of our full time faculty practice at least one day a week. A lot of them. It's a lot more than that. So they know what you need to know. They're not kind of in the ivory tower of academia, not that they don't do research and other things.

You but they are out there getting that hands on experience and can give you know current examples of what it's like to practice as an FMP, which is always good. The medical field is always changing and so having those current examples is a huge benefit.

We also have multiple layers of support available at the College of Nursing and at UC in general. So you start with your enrollment services advisor, that's me and my team. And once you kind of get through the application process, if you get an offer for the program and confirm your spot, that's when we are going to pass you along to your student success coordinator who is essentially your advisor during the program. So they will do multiple check-ins with you throughout the semester.

And that they will make sure that you are registering for graduation when you get to that point and are essentially your first point of contact.

The kind of next layer is the clinical site coordinator, so super important when it gets to the clinical portion, obviously they will help facilitate contracts with clinical sites, make sure you're getting you know the information you need to submit your paperwork on time. So very important role there. We have our program directors like Doctor Donna Worth, all of our wonderful faculty who really are committed to making sure that students are learning the material and being well prepared to go out and practice and then of course.

Financially support staff. And so we've got kind of all of those different people who are available and that many more behind the scenes that aren't specifically listed here, but again, here to support all of our students whether they're online or in person.

O program passwords, we are always very proud of these and like to point these out. So last year our first attempt, so first time test takers, they had a 100% pass rate on the ANC exam. So super excited for that. Always love to see that obviously that's the whole point of doing the program is to pass that certification exam and get out there and start practicing and so always like to highlight that.

And now I will pass it off to Doctor Donworth, our program director, and she'll talk a little bit about herself and kind of go from there. So it's all you, Sherry.

Can you hear me now?

OK, it's doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do. OK, anyway, I'm Sherry Donworth. I am the coordinator Director of the Postmasters FNP program. I've been a nurse. I started out as an LPN back in the 80s, did my RN, my BSN, originally did my FNP in 1999 and a Postmasters Adult Acute Care in 2007, and finally my doctorate in 2013.

So if you are taking the long road, I can empathize with you. I had kids and worked the whole time, so I have a lot of empathy for what you're going to be going through. For the most part, my nursing experience was critical care at the bedside. As far as my NP experience, I've done a little bit of everything because I get bored pretty easily.

We've done pulmonary critical care, cardiology for the most part, which is where I am now.

Some primary care geriatrics. I also worked in the Walgreens clinics, so that's the only, like urgent care pediatric experience I've had. I worked in a clinic for the homeless.

Trying to think what else have I done?

Anyway, mostly cardiology and and that's where I am now.

So let's see.

All right. Our program, so graduates of the FNP program, the advantage is you can take care of patients for a wide variety of venues and ages. So it's pretty much birth to death and you can do any kind of ambulatory care. You're eligible to sit for boards. So when you graduate, that does not mean that you can practice. You have to sit for boards. And this program is designed for people that are already.

Have a Masters, a previous Masters or it could be a DNP and at least a year's clinical experience at least a years within the past five years.

The the schema that I will make for you is highly customized.

I really have to pour through everyone's transcripts. Everyone is different if you graduated a really long time ago.

Umm. There's a possibility that you might have to repeat some courses. Umm.

I.

Always am open to if students want to submit a syllabus or whatever and they they want me to take a look at coursework that they've done in the past. But.

I I also suggest for my postmasters.

People to take the the ANP exam rather than the AMC because I have had some issues with the ANC, with my postmaster students, even if they are already ANC certified. So for example as an adult Gero or an A pediatric NP, I've had issues with them accepting for example, your advanced path of Physiology and I don't get that kind of pushback from the ANP.

So I do have a lot of students who go ahead and take the ANC and don't have any problems. But I do like to tell people ahead of time that they might want to consider that, especially if they're if any of their coursework is older. But I will create that customized schema. Your pharmacology is a big deal. It has to be within five years in order for you to sit for boards. Now that is not true if you already are a prescribing.

NP. So if you're already adult Jaro, you're already Pediatrics, and you are an active prescribing NP.

Your pharmacology. You have to take your your continuing education, pharmacology. But you do not have to retake pharmacology if you are not a prescriber. Even if you're an NPC, you haven't practiced. If you're AC RNA, you have to take our pharmacology course. But all of the courses are offered online. They're for the most part, all of them are offered every term. So if something comes up and you have to skip a term, you don't have to wait till the.

All next year, in order to catch up, everything is offered pretty much every term, so that works out pretty nicely.

So why should you attend our program? Well, again, you're going to take care of patients across the lifespan. I do want to emphasize that this is an ambulatory care.

Program. If you want to work in critical care at the bedside, if you want to intubate patients, you want to put in chest tubes, you need to do adult acute care. Now you will see people with a FNP's or adult Jiro working in those venues. I know that. I know they're there, but I am telling you that is not what they're certified for and if I do some legal consulting and if anything.

Comes up and anything goes wrong. It's going to be an issue if you are not certified to work in acute care. Does not matter what you're on. The job training program is, it matters what board certification you have. So please understand that do not take this program if you want to work at the bedside in critical care. Now you can work in the emergency department as long most emergency departments have a fast track and most as if you've worked in the emergency department.

You know, most people that are in there are really not emergencies. There are things that they could have seen primary care for. So a lot of MP's that are FNP's work in those in that arena because they work in the fast track. So they take care of all the minor things. They do a lot of suturing, splinting kid stuff, you know, antibiotics. But they're not going to be taking care of the rule out MI for example, or the status asthmaticus. We're not going to take care of those patients.

So I always like to clarify that because I do get that question a lot. So this program prepares you to sit for the national certification. We have an excellent pass rate because our program is rigorous.

That's good and bad. I mean I do have students, you know that that tell me especially with something like pharmacology. You know, I've been giving drugs for 20 years and I didn't know what I didn't know. And it is very different to have to have the knowledge base to be a prescriber than it is to to give medications. So it is pretty in depth.

Again, our plan is flexible people. Everyone is that comes into this program as an adult. They're all, they're all working for the most part. People have babies, people have illnesses, Grandma goes into Hospice, people move whatever the issue is, if you need to take a semester off, that is not a big deal. You just let us know. Also I have people that want to take, they want to get it done, they want to like cram it all in as fast as they can and the the first term.

And they try to take three courses at once and work and have a family and they find out that is just not possible, not with the rigor of these courses.

So if you're in that boat and you want to slow down, you can do that. You can also speed up, you know, you can say well I've decided to work PRN next term, so I'd like to take another course. So as long as it's something that you know that you don't have to have a a different prerequisite for, for the most part we can accommodate that. So that's not a problem. Our other important point that I think for our program is all of our NP's.

That teach all practice, we all live in the real world. So we practice. We have NP's on our faculty that are in oncology, neurosurgery, cardiology, primary care, pre admission testing, Women's Health, I mean pretty much everything. So we have a really broad knowledge base of of practitioners that can bring world real world.

Situations and and stories to their teaching. And I do often get comments from students about enjoying my funny stories. Because if you've been around for a long time you you always end up with some good stories that I'd like to tell when I'm teaching, and it does help people remember things when they think of it as a story.

I will tell you something funny. I actually had my husband. I always tell a story in one of my classes about my husband who had a DVT and.

Um, I didn't know he had a DVT so the story was I always. I preface it by telling them this is how I got accused of trying to kill my husband because I didn't know he had a DVT. So anyway, so I tell the story about, you know, unilateral leg pain and DVT and my husband went in to have a physical and the NP doing the physical recognizes name and he asked her if he knew if she knew me and she did. She was one of my students.

And she said to my husband, are you the husband with a DVT? Because she remembered that story. So I'm sure that all of us have similar stories like that to tell. So we do like to integrate real world experience into our teaching. And I do think that that is one of the the really big points of our program. You're not being taught by people who have not interacted with patients in years. And I think that's really important.

So your prerequisites. You have to completed your stats course, undergrad stats with a C or better, you have to have your MSN or BSN at an accredited program with a three-point O, and you need to have one year of our end experience. You really need to have that experience again. It's sort of like when you think about when you graduated from our end school and how scary it was to be on your own. You really need that grounding.

Of that year, at least.

Of experience to go on and become a nurse practitioner, I think that's it. Makes it easier too because you're you understand more clinical situations, you know what sick looks like, you know questions to ask. So it really does help you. So that is a requirement for us.

And one thing I want to add in there with Doctor Donworth already mentioned earlier, if you have just your BSN and your DNP, that's totally fine, you're still eligible to apply. Or if you did like a Bachelors of Business and then you did an accelerated nursing program and accelerated MSN program, so you're not an NP, that's fine too. So as long as you have that MSN degree or a DMP.

And then you can apply once you of course have your Europe are an experience as well because that is something that's very important.

OK.

Ah, we can kind of both talk about this. I can kind of take the lead if you want. So we do have a holistic admission process. So there are quite a few documents that you need for the application that we use a third party system called nursing casts. So it's nursing CAS and it's like a common application for nursing program. So a lot of different schools use it and and all of these things will play a role. So we're not, you know, making you write a personal goal statement just to put you through the paces.

It is something that is going to be read. We've got some bullet points of kind of prompts and things that you should address in that goal statement which are listed on the nursing cast site also if you talk to myself or any of my colleagues and we'll give you those tips as well. So we'll also need your professional resume or CV, obviously an unrestricted RN license and it doesn't need to be your RN license. I know there are some states where like your MP will kind of trump.

That and you just have one for both which is OK and just let us screenshot of that is all we need. We don't expect anyone to have a a hard copy anymore. So a screenshot from your State Board of Nursing with your name and license number is what we need there.

This is a big one. Official transcripts from every institution where you've earned credit. So nursing related or not, if it was a couple of prereqs that transferred into your BSN program, all of those official transcripts need to be sent directly to nursing casts. So nothing comes to the University of Cincinnati, which I know feels a little weird. But since nursing Cass is the system that we use, kind of all of your documents need to live in their system. So that's why even transcripts.

The center nursing Cass and they do accept electronic transcripts. So if your school's use like parchment or national student clearinghouse, they are able to send those electronically to nursing casts.

And I also like to point out that if you have done your degrees outside of the US, then we will need a W evaluation. So World Education Service evaluation, there are a few others you can use, but West is the preferred and essentially they'll do a course by course evaluation and also confirm that your degree is considered equivalent to like a four year BSN degree in the US. So definitely something that you can talk to us about too for any help there.

Only eat at three professional or academic references. If you don't have an academic reference, that's very much OK. A lot of times we have students that have been done with the academic world for a while and are coming back in, so don't worry if you don't have an academic reference. Generally we look for like a supervisor or others in a leadership position, which again can be tricky sometimes if you are that person. So I always tell people just to use your best judgment, right? So the most important thing is that it's.

Professional, not personal. Not that we don't want great people in our program, but we also need to know that you're a good nurse or you're a good MP and why you would be a good fit for the program. And obviously those who are MP's or nurses and DDoS can speak to that, so that's what we look for there. And for the references, you will just need to provide the name and contact e-mail for the individuals you choose. And then nursing casts will actually e-mail them directly so they'll get instructions from nursing cast.

Essentially, they have to complete a Likert scale where they rank you on about 15 or so characteristics, and then they do have to upload an actual letter as well. So they'll get all of those instructions from nursing casts.

And one last thing to point out with the application. I know this is kind of a lot, but we do require full transcript entry. So what that means is even though your transcripts are going to be a part of your application, we require students to manually enter in each course that they've completed. So if it was the Fall 2008 semester, you took English 101, it was introductory English 3 credits, and you got an A. That's essentially what you put into that section.

And I know that can sound overwhelming at times. I have entered in a four year bachelor's degree myself and it took me about 40 minutes. So it wasn't terrible. Obviously it took some time. You can always save it and go back and I know you will obviously have at least 2 degrees, so it will take longer than 40 minutes for you really just data entry. And we require that because nursing has will calculate an overall GPA for every school that you've attended.

And they'll also do a breakdown by year and subject area so we can really see that holistic view of your academic background. There's also an option to pay nursing cast to do that for you. It's called professional transcript entry and it starts at $75.00 for the 1st 3 transcripts and then increases from there.

And so you can do kind of a sliding scale there. If you have say 4 transcripts, you can enter one yourself. Whichever one is the shortest and has the fewest classes is what I would recommend. And then you can pay nursing Cast to do the other 3-4 EO, So fairly flexible there.

And once you kind of have all those documents in, you can submit your application in nursing casts and then pay the $80.00 Nursing CAS application fee. Right now we do have some coupon codes available for our Spring 2024 applicants and the individualized code will essentially waive that. $80.00. Nursing has application fee for you, so it's something that you can only get once you're ready to submit your application. So you can't just say, oh I want to apply, give me a code, you have to wait.

Until you're kind of officially ready to submit because it is an individualized code. So that's why we have to wait a little bit. And then there's also usually a $20 application fee for UC, but we are currently waiving that fee for our Spring 24 applicants. So that one is much easier. We just automatically waive it. There's no code or anything, but that would come kind of later in the process once you've already submitted your application in nursing class.

So I've talked about this a little bit already, the application process. So again, you do everything through nursing casts.

And you won't pay that $80.00 fee or use a coupon code once you're ready to submit. You are able to submit before Nursing has has received all of your official transcripts and before they have all of your completed recommendations. So if you get to that point, go ahead and submit, because at that point myself and my colleagues can see the full details of your application so we're able to better track things for you and kind of help out. e-mail references if needed. Give them a little nudge.

Um, so good to submit early on.

If you do that individual class entry yourself, so the coursework or transcript entry, you must do that before you can submit. If you pay, Nursing has to do it for you. They won't do it until after you've submitted and they have all of your transcripts. And essentially once all of your documents are there all of your transcripts, all of your recommendations, you'll move to complete status. And then Nursing has will do a verification of your application details and when you're verified, that's when you'll.

Going to move to the next step.

And the next step is completing the UC Graduate School application, which is very simple. So since we're paying a waiving that $20 application fee, you don't have to worry about that. All you have to do is create your login essentially for the Graduate School.

So super easy process there and at that point you would be ready for reveal. So we send applications every Friday to Doctor Donauworth and decisions are usually made within about one to three weeks. It can vary a little bit on if you know one student has sent for review that week or 10:00, so it can vary a bit on that decision time frame. But once that decision is made, you'll get an e-mail from the Graduate School notifying you of that update and you'll also hear from myself.

For my colleagues to hopefully give you some good news and that's the point where you would get your customized schema as well and it can be a little hard in these sessions which we'll get to very soon. Here some examples of what classes you might need to take and we won't be able to get into super specifics because it is so different depending on your background and it's hard for either of us to give you any kind of indication without you know talking to each individual.

Student and nothing official would happen until after you apply and Doctor Donworth is able to review those transcripts. But we do have some sample schemas. So if you haven't talked to your Enrollment Services advisor yet, I would definitely recommend doing that because we've got a full slew of example schemas that we can share with you. So just kind of based on your background, we can get you that sample so you can get an idea of what things might look like.

I've waited for the tuition and fees. The cost per credit hour for our in state students is $892.00 and then for out of state it's $907.00, so not a huge difference there. And then we've got a blood pathogen fee of $31.00 that's assessed each academic year, so every 3rd semester.

Super important thing with our postmaster certificate program is that it is not eligible for federal financial aid.

So that means that you can't complete a FAFSA to apply for that federal loan to help pay for the program. So students send to you either use the payment plan with the Bursar's office and the Bursars will take the tuition fees for one particular semester and split it into 3 equal monthly payments. So and we can be kind of flexible on how many classes you're enrolled in each semester to kind of help plan out that payment portion. Some students will apply for a private loan, so like.

Credit based loan to help pay for the program or they'll have tuition reimbursement through their employer or kind of any combination of the above. So obviously the financial piece is always an important part of the decision when you're looking at programs and trying to decide where you want to go. But definitely talk to your enrollment services advisor. I want you to be sure that you understand the financial aspect of this and that you're prepared for that.

And that we do also have some university to business scholarships. So that is essentially a scholarship program where we have worked with different employers across the country to set up a discount that we can give on our instructional fee. So there are some big ones that we've got those agreements with.

You know, Mercy Health, Bon Secours, Mercy Health is a really big one. And if you know, you work for like a smaller clinic or something, we have those scholarships set up with clinics that have 30 employees all the way up to the Mercy Health, which obviously have way more than that. So it's not just the big organization. So if it's something you're interested in, definitely let us know and we can give you more details on that.

All right, so this is where all passive back to Doctor Donauworth and it will be able to talk through some of the courses. Like I said, we won't be able to go into super specifics for each person, but can give a better idea.

Ohh, I can't hear you.

How about now?

I've got a tickle in my throat.

Sorry about that. Possible courses for current and P's. So this is where it gets very individualized.

If you are already an adult gero NP, you're not need, you are not going to need to take clinical management one and clinical management 2 differential diagnosis. For example, if you're a pediatric NP, you can see there's a, there are two classes there that are each 1/2 a term clinical management of well women and clinical management for children. So you know it's each one is 7 weeks long. So it's one full term altogether.

If you're already a woman's health MP, you don't need to take Women's Health. If you're already Pediatrics, you don't need to take the pediatric piece, so it's very individual. Internships are.

Clinical practicums. If you're already an NP, you're not going to have to take all the practicums. There are generally 4, and people that are MP's take either two or three. For the most part, any NP is probably going to get credit for one.

One internship and then your other internships would follow that. So you're going to have clinical hours in adult primary care, Pediatrics and Women's Health slash well OB. So whatever population you're already certified in, obviously you're not going to need to repeat those clinical hours.

Now, if you are not a nurse practitioner, then you are going to need to take more coursework, obviously if you have, for example your masters is in nursing administration or pardon me, leadership or education.

Sorry about that.

Then you're going to need to take the core courses, which are Advanced Health Assessment, Advanced Pharmacology and Advance Patho Fiz, as well as the other courses, differential and clinical management courses. And you would take all four internships. It's a total of 472, not for it 672 hours. You divide that by 4, you get 168. But that's an arbitrary number, so I get it.

A lot of emails from students hung up on that number because, for example, if you're doing Women's Health that term, you might only do 150 hours because you're just doing Women's Health. If you're doing Pediatrics, you need 200 pediatric hours, so you might be doing 200 hours in that term. We generally don't allow you to go over that.

But let's say that you're in a really good situation. You're doing adult primary care and you would like to get more than your 168. We will allow you to go up to 200 hours with that preceptor within that term, but that generally is the limit. So the 168 is arbitrary. So it does fluctuate a little bit according to what you're doing.

Preceptors This is an important thing. And preceptors, unfortunately it's a national problem, are hard to find. It's very frustrating. Sometimes it's NP's that don't want to take students. A lot of times it's a practice who won't allow them to take a student.

There are agencies now who pay people to be preceptors, so that also limits the the people that we can get to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, which I often remind them that's how they got their degree with somebody precepted them out of the goodness of their heart. So your preceptor needs to be in an ambulatory care setting. So it could be a clinic within a hospital.

For example, I worked in heart failure clinic. It was in a hospital, but it was an ambulatory care clinic. That would be appropriate it working in the emergency department if you're working in the fast track. Also would be appropriate rounding with a hospitalist, Not an appropriate preceptor because that is an inpatient focus, so it needs to be an ambulatory care focus your first.

Internship. If you are not an NPC, the reason why you don't have to do this if you've already are advanced practice is you're really honing in on that history and physical and differential diagnosis and it's a really a new way of thinking from being a bedside nurse. And if you talk to an NPC they can tell you it really is a a leap in thinking and practice. So you just get used to that part and then you just build on from there with those.

Other internships, you also can do so many specialty hours up to 90 specialty hours. So it's what is it 372 I think that that you do an adult primary care, let's say you're interested in cardiology, you can do 90 hours in cardiology and that can be your specialty hours or dermatology, that's a really popular one.

Any kind of specialty that you're in nephrology, endocrine, I mean there's the list is pretty much endless. As long as you're doing it in an ambulatory setting, that's perfectly fine. You can do 90 hours of a specialty, you can do 120 hours of urgent care. We don't allow you to use all the hours of urgent care, especially for Pediatrics because.

You'll be seeing those sick visits, but you won't be doing the the growth and development, the anticipatory guidance, the things that you will do in primary care Pediatrics that you need to be.

Educated in any practice app because you're going to be tested on those things when you take boards. So with each internship you get a little bit more autonomous. We have a lot of students who get job offers by the time that they get to that last internship. So you might want to wait to do your favorite thing until toward the end so that you can't. You know, let's say you you start out and you work somewhere and they're really interested in hiring you, but you're two years out.

From graduation, that kind of isn't very convenient. But if you're toward the end, you're in your last year and you're doing it being precepted and they're interested in hiring someone, you could say, well, yeah, I'm I only have one term or two terms to go and I will be finished. So you might want to think about that when you're planning. But again, it's hard sometimes to find preceptors. We do have coordinators who have, since we are all over the country.

And we have graduates all over the country. We do have a list of preceptors that we have used in the past, so we can help you with that. In addition, if you are, and I have had some students do this who were desperate, if you're going to pay a service to find you a preceptor, I get it. If you don't want to sit out a term and I have no idea what they cost.

But be mindful of this. Make sure you are going to get an adequate experience. I'm sure many of the people who do it, who do this, who precept students and get paid for it. I'm not opposed to people getting paid for their work and they do a great job.

I've had a few instances where I've had a student show up and this preceptor has four students there.

Now that is not an appropriate you're you're not going to get anything out of that. I mean you it needs to be a one to one situation. So just make sure that whoever or whatever company that you're signing up with that you're going to get an appropriate experience and enough attention from your preceptor.

And a few things I like to add about the preceptors. First, this document is something that we can share with you. So if you haven't gotten this document yet, again, reach out to your enrollment services advisor, We can share it with you. There's a couple of other really good documents with some FAQ's and some other guidance. I feel like when I talk to a student on the phone and I'm kind of going through all of this, I know it can feel a little overwhelming and even the documents can honestly feel a little overwhelming.

Um, but especially for the FMP specialty where you have to make sure you're hitting kind of different populations and making sure you don't go over like the 90 specialty hours or something. I like to provide as much information as possible so that we can be as transparent as possible with that process. So definitely let us know if you need any of these.

It's listed on here. I know it's a little small, but you can use other practitioners in addition to FNP's. So don't feel like you can only ask an FNP to preset for you M, DDO's, Women's Health, NP certified Nurse Midwives. But you can't use a PA. So I do get that question a lot on PA cannot precept for you. So there are options. And even if you're not in a setting where you're like, oh gosh, I don't work with any NPC's, I don't know where to start. You never know who people might know.

So starting with kind of your coworkers, um, kind of your own networks that you already have, just ask that question and ask that question early because the earlier you start and you lay that foundation, the smoother it will hopefully be you once you get to the point of actually doing your clinical hours. And sometimes they can start really quickly, especially for those who are already at peas, which you may not be as concerned, you may already have those networks in place, but good to still kind of lay that.

Foundation so that you know if you let's say you start clinical hours in your second semester, you're going to be turning in paperwork and your first semester of the program to make sure that you're ready for that internship. So really important to start early, start asking those questions and obviously any help you might need if you're struggling let us know and we can connect you with that clinical site coordinator.

I did want to add another thing about preceptors.

If you are already an NP, you do not have to have any preceptor time with a nurse practitioner. You can use whoever you can find. You have physician, MD, DOB or an MP. If you are not a nurse practitioner, you need to have one. If you need to have at least 100 hours with a nurse practitioner, and this is because you need to get acclimated to the role, it really is different. And trust me when I tell you, physicians have no idea what your role is.

They don't know what your legal scope is. I've had physicians tell students that were adult gero. Sure you can see kids because I'm here. Well, that might be true of a PA, but it is not true of an adult nurse practitioner. So it's important to have that 100 hours with an NP and then you can.

Branch out and and have a variety of preceptors. But again, you do not need to have that If you already are in that role, you don't need that that piece. So I just wanted to add that real quick.

I guess this is back to me. So we do have some state restrictions. So we cannot accept applications from students who live in Arizona, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island or Tennessee. So if you live in one of those states, unfortunately we can't accept an application from you. Also super important to remember that you also cannot do clinical hours in these states. So some students will if they've got like a compact.

They're unlicensed, do clinical hours in more than one state, which is totally fine. Just as an example. And Cincinnati, we are very close to Kentucky and Indiana. So a lot of students will do their clinical hours in those states as well. And that's fine because they're approved, but you can't do any clinical hours in these states.

You also can't. It's really based on like your address, your permanent residency. So I will have a lot of students who, for example, live in New York but work in New Jersey and they're like, oh, but I'll do all my clinical hours in New Jersey. I'll sit for the certification exam in New Jersey. It'll be fine. No, full stop, can't do anything in any of these states. So try to avoid them at all costs during the duration of the program. Once you complete the program, you pass the certification exam.

Those are national exams, so you can practice anywhere in the US You just have to apply for reciprocity in that new state. So again, only restricted while enrolled in the program. And once you pass the certification exam, then you can practice whatever you like. And just one note to for students who are local so Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont counties in Ohio, Boone, Kenton and Campbell County in Kentucky. In nursing cast, there's.

A distance learning program and then there's also a Cincinnati metro area program. So you'll want to choose that metro area application. It's really just an administrative thing that allows us to better track our local students just to make sure that we are kind of keeping them in mind, especially when it comes to the clinical portion. And not that we don't keep our other students in mind as well, but just a a good way for us to track our local students if you've already submitted.

An application and you accidentally submitted it for the wrong.

Program the distance learning instead of the metro area or vice versa. Not a problem at all, we can fix that on our end, but just like to point that out.

OK. So I know we've been talking for a really long time and this is where you guys can ask your questions. So you don't have a microphone, so you can just chat your questions. So you should be able to see a little box for the chat and enter in any questions that you might have.

I'm trying to think. I know another big thing with clinical hours that I'll get, so just.

As an example with 168 hours, let's say you are looking to do that full 168 in the 16 week semester, which is kind of our standard semester lengths. The summer is a little bit shorter, but we can also send you the academic calendar so you can see those exact kind of start and end dates. The 168 hours averages out to about 12 hours per week, 12 to 14 hours per week, but you don't have to do that exact number, so you can do.

You know, whatever, 20 hours, one week, 8 hours the next, totally fine. However, you can get those 168 hours completed and the term dates of that semester. Also good to kind of front load those hours in the semester so you've got a little bit of a buffer. Obviously things can happen and just good to have some extra wiggle room there.

So good to to keep that in mind and I guess I kind of skipped over and I apologize for this. I feel like I usually talk about it. All of our classes are asynchronous, so you don't have to log in for a live lecture. Usually the coursework is posted on like a Sunday or Monday and then you have until the following Sunday to get that work completed. So you're able to kind of fit it into your schedule where it works best for you, but also keep you on track with those weekly deadlines. I know I need deadlines.

Hurt myself to get things done, so like to have those kind of set up.

And you'll still have, you know, recorded lectures, assigned readings, exams, discussion boards. You'll still get a syllabus as well, just like a kind of traditional on campus program. You'll still get a syllabus, so you'll you'll know what is expected of you during that semester.

Trying to think of other questions. I know it can be scary to be the first person to type in a question, so I'm trying to think of other things that we might get.

If you do think of a question later, you can always just let us know, send an e-mail and we'll be happy to answer any questions.

Yes, I just put in my personal e-mail. We'll also have an or a slide that has like our generic kind of recruitment e-mail. So you can reach out to that one or feel free to reach out to me. And if you've already talked to one of my colleagues, I'll just kind of forward your e-mail to them.

So that uh.

I'm sorry, I just got a message from someone, so I'll forward it along to the person you've already been working with since they'll already know your background, and if you haven't talked to anyone yet, then we will just go ahead and get started answering that question. Someone let me know that they weren't able to use the chat box.

So I am not sure what's going.

I see some questions.

OK.

Ohh.

I don't know if these are current or not. Yeah, it looks like they are there. There is a recording that will be made available, correct?

Yes, so we are recording this and it usually takes like between 24 and 48 hours for the recording to be available. But once it is available we will e-mail it out to everyone. So if you missed the 1st 5 minutes or something, not not a big deal. We will get this full recording out to you.

And the other what question was next steps of if they want to begin next term next semester.

Yeah. So the questions box must be a new feature. I feel like that wasn't there the last time we did this. So next steps if you wanted to be considered. So like I said earlier on the spring semester, so January 8th is the start date of that semester is the application that's open. So you would go to nursing casts and create an account with them at our program, get started on that application process.

And I'm actually going to go ahead and put that nursing cast link in here. Um.

The priority deadline is September 1st, which I know is about a month away. And again, you can't submit before a nursing has has all of your official transcripts and recommendations. I'm good to aim for that September 1st priority deadline just to kind of save your spot for review for that spring cohort.

See next steps, definitely Nursing Cass and we have again the enrollment services advisors. We've got a step by step guide on how to do that application in Nursing cast and we've got some screenshots and some tips because it is a bit different than what students are used to. Honestly, I do think it's like fairly straightforward once you get into it. It can just look like a lot when you first log in. But we can again send you that step by step guide and any questions you have along the way you can reach out to us.

Nursing Cass also has a live chat feature which is really cool. It's only available during like normal business hours, but they are available to help you as well.

Can I go back to the questions just in case I'm missing something?

Trying to think of other questions that we've we usually get in the past.

Sorry, my dog is coming over to say hi. She always help over.

We.

I think one big thing, I guess, that I kind of advise students to when I'm talking to them on the phone. If you have a class that, let's say Doctor Donworth creates your customized schema and she puts on there that you need Advanced Health Assessment and you're like, wait a minute, I took this class in my MSN. What do you mean?

Then you can just provide a syllabus for that class. If you don't have the syllabus, I get it. I actually just found a bunch of syllabi from my bachelors program which was more than 10 years ago at my parents house and got rid of all of them so I would have to reach out to my school. But if you reach out to your school where you did your MSN program, they will be able to provide that syllabus for you. Send it along to me, I'll get it to Doctor Donnenwirth and she'll do an additional review.

Hmm.

So always open to that.

What would you say set your program apart? I know what I would say, but I want Doctor Donna worth to say what she thinks first.

I think what sets it apart is that we all actively practice and that we have such diverse backgrounds, everything from occupational health, neurosurgery. It's an ambulatory setting.

Cardiology that's in an ambulatory setting. Oncology trying to think of what else?

101 is in a headache specialty clinic. I mean, we have just a really diverse faculty as far as experience and I think that that really informs our teaching and that we still practice clinically, I think is what sets us apart.

And I like to point out to you that, like, we're all in the Cincinnati area, so it's been a while since I've seen Doctor Donna Worth in person. Person, because we've got hybrid schedules now, but we know each other. We meet often. And not just Doctor Donna Worth. And obviously not just me on my own, but my team, your student success coordinator, I do see.

Them in person occasionally and can just walk right over to their desk if there's, you know, something going on. Really easy to message them on teams, which not that you can't do that when you're all across the country, but I think it just gives a little bit of a different feel that we are all like geographically close, which I think just makes it a whole lot easier to feel comfortable with each other and provide that support for students.

I know sometimes I get a question from a student who's a semester to win just because they, you know, weren't sure you're sure who to reach out to. And they're like, oh, well, I remember Joni, I'm going to e-mail her. And that's fine. Like, it's not like, you know, the next person forgets who I am because we see each other at least once a month for meetings, usually more than that. But we're all, We're all right here. So I think that just gives a different feel to the support that we can give because we're we're all.

All in Cincinnati.

Well, if those are all the questions, again, I do want to reiterate that any other questions you think of after this e-mail me, e-mail my team, reach out to us. Especially if you haven't gotten a sample schema yet. I think it's really important to get that to have you know an idea of is this going to be, you know, 2 semesters and eight credit hours or is this going to be 5 semesters?

And thirty credit hours, because that's a huge difference. So definitely want you to have that in mind before you start the application process. So we can try and assist as much as we can there. Like I mentioned, the priority deadline is September 1st, so about a month away. Just relisting kind of the documents you need here. Ask us about the waiver. So when you get to the point, there's four sections of the application. So it's personal information, academic history, supporting information and program materials.

When each of those has a green check mark, you just have to take like a picture or screenshot and then you can e-mail or text it to your enrollment services advisor and then we can get that individualized code to you.

We do have a grace period until October 31st, 4 Nursing casts to receive your official transcripts and recommendations and also for Nursing Cast to do that professional transcript entry if you choose to pay them to do that for you.

Want to make the note that don't let your references know that they have until October 31st, because sometimes that means that it's after October 31st before they get those in. Not that they won't still have access, but just give them a little bit earlier of a deadline. It doesn't hurt to kind of get things done early, because the sooner your application is fully complete, the sooner we can send that to Doctor Donna Worth and you get not just your decision, but more importantly your customized schema so you can see.

Exactly which classes you need?

So here's the contact information I mentioned earlier, so the online recruitment inbox, this phone number, the 556-7400 is our like general phone number. So each of us have our own personal numbers that you can call or text us at. I always like to point out the texting feature there because it's very convenient. Obviously we only respond to text during normal working hours, so usually if someone is texting me at this time.

Night. They're going to hear from me tomorrow morning and not tonight because we have those set hours for the 7400 number. Since we have a hybrid schedule, we can't actually like physically pick up that phone anymore. So if you call that number, you will have to leave a voicemail, but just let us know that you called. We are on those pretty quickly. It's checked multiple times a day, so just make sure you leave a voicemail and honestly the same goes for if you.

Call, for example, myself and I don't answer. I can't call you back if I don't know that you called. So I might have just been on the line with another student or on a lunch break or any of, you know, 100 different things. So just leave that voicemail and if there's like a certain time that you want to return call, obviously just put it in there. Also, obviously feel free to text too, because that can we can at least figure out a time for a phone call if nothing else.

All right. Well, I think that's the end of the presentation. So thank you again, everyone for coming. Thank you, Doctor Donna Worth for your expertise and your insight. I'm always love hearing from you. And we'll get this recording sent out to you all in the next couple of days or so.

Thank you.

Thanks everyone.