Nurse Practitioner Programs in Kentucky

Nurse Practitioner Programs or the ARNP (Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner) are master’s degree or post-master’s degree programs. Simply stating the nurse practitioners are the nursing staff that work in either collaborative or independent environment and are authorized to medicate and diagnose the patient without any other nursing staff supervision. These are experienced and skilled nursing staff.

The training programs have certain pre-requirements that a candidate must meet before enrollment in a training program for nurse practitioner course. Before discussing further details of the training programs let us have a glimpse of the eligibility criteria. It states:-

· Candidate must be a current license holder as a Registered Nurse (RN) with a valid RN certification from an accredited training school.

· Minimum age criterion is 21 years.

· A mandatory health check and a background check as well.

· Candidate must be having excellent academic and graduation records and must have at least 3.0 GPA.

· CPR certification is also mandatory as they are important life saving skills that a nurse practitioner must know for primary care and treatment.

· GRE/MAT is compulsory in most of the training schools with exception for candidates having exceptionally higher GPA of 3.2 or higher.

Besides these requirements there are certain other requirements also such as recommendation letter and school and college transcripts. The training programs are 1-2 years long. The programs can exceed this duration in case you are attending the part time training course. Computer literacy and proficiency in English are also required as most of the states in the nation are English speaking counties. There are 10 schools in the Kentucky region that provide nurse practitioner Programs in Kentucky training and you also have another option present in form of many accredited online training programs. Training programs are not complete without 500 hours of complete clinical training and experience. Credit hours are given in the training programs based on your clinical experience. Here are the names of some of the schools that provide training for nurse practitioner programs:-

· Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green

· Thomas Moore College, Crestview Hills

· Northern Kentucky University, Highland heights (online programs)

· University of Kentucky, Lexington

· University of Louisville, Louisville

· Spalding University, Louisville

· Bellarmine University, Louisville

· Murray State University, Murray (online programs)

· Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond

· Saint Catharine College, Saint Catharine

The average salary of a nurse practitioner is $91000 in Kentucky region but it may very immensely on the job location and training facility and type of field you choose during the training program. There are a number of nursing fields to choose from such as psychiatry, geriatric nurse, family nurse, adult nurse, acute care, maternity nurse, neonatal nurse etc. Every field is different from one another as each of the field has its own importance and responsibilities. The license is issued for 5 years and then a recertification is required.