Why So Many Nurses Regret NP School — And How to Avoid That Mistake

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If you’ve been scrolling YouTube trying to decide whether to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner, you’ve probably seen the titles.

“Becoming an NP wasn’t worth it.” “I regret becoming a nurse practitioner.” “Why you shouldn’t go to NP school.”

Those videos hurt my heart a little — but I’ll be honest: they’re reacting to something real.

After seventeen years as an NP, I can tell you the problem usually isn’t the profession. It’s that many nurses go to NP school without fully thinking through the decision.

So before you apply, here are three questions worth sitting with.

If you’re just starting to explore this decision, start with my first post in this series: Before You Apply to NP School.

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Question 1: Are You Choosing NP School — or Just Trying to Escape Bedside?

Do you truly want to become a nurse practitioner, or are you just frustrated with where you are right now?

Burnout in nursing is real. Shift work can be exhausting. Hospital systems are constantly changing. Patient violence is rising in many places. The emotional toll of patient care is real.

When you’re living inside that environment day after day, it’s very easy to start thinking: maybe I should just go to NP school.

For a lot of nurses, becoming an NP starts to feel like the obvious way out of bedside.

But leaving bedside doesn’t automatically mean things get easier. It simply means you’re stepping into a different kind of responsibility.

As an NP, you’re diagnosing. You’re prescribing. You’re carrying legal and clinical responsibility for patient care decisions. And in many environments, you’re also taking on additional tasks simply because you’re capable of doing them.

That’s why it’s important to pause and ask yourself a deeper question:

Am I running away from something — or am I genuinely pulled toward this role?

Frustration can push us to make fast decisions. But fast decisions don’t always lead us to the right place.

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Question 2: What Does Your Ideal Day as a Nurse Practitioner Actually Look Like?

Most nurses can tell you what they want to escape. Far fewer have actually pictured what they want to walk into.

When I was first thinking about becoming a nurse practitioner, the most common path at the time was primary care. And I assumed that’s what I wanted.

I had always loved children. When I was younger, I even thought I might become a pediatrician one day. So moving toward pediatrics and primary care felt like a natural direction.

But once I started exploring what that work actually looked like day to day, I realized something. Seeing patient after patient in clinic, discussing vaccines and preventive care all day, just didn’t excite me the way I expected it would.

It wasn’t a bad job. It just wasn’t the right fit for me.

At one point, I even considered midwifery because I thought it might align better with my interest in pediatric care. But that didn’t feel quite right either. And staying in critical care long-term didn’t feel sustainable for me personally.

Eventually I found a middle ground in pediatric acute and chronic care, which gave me something I realized I needed: intensity and problem-solving — but with some flexibility.

That discovery didn’t happen overnight. It happened because I paid attention to what kind of work actually energized me.

If I had simply followed what everyone else was doing, I might have ended up in a career path that didn’t fit me at all.

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Question 3: Is NP School the Right Next Step — or Just the Most Obvious One?

Have you explored all the possibilities available to you in nursing?

One of the most powerful things about a nursing degree is how versatile it really is. Nurses develop strong clinical judgment and critical thinking skills, and those skills can translate into many different roles.

Some nurses move into leadership positions. Others transition into informatics, helping design and improve healthcare systems. There are roles in quality improvement, where nurses help organizations redesign processes to improve patient care. Some nurses build businesses and step into entrepreneurship. Others work in education, teaching the next generation of nurses or helping students prepare for licensing exams.

I’ve even worked in roles where I helped nurses prepare for the NCLEX, which allowed me to stay connected to the profession in a completely different way.

Becoming a nurse practitioner is one path. But it’s not the only path. And sometimes the best career move is not simply choosing the next logical step, but exploring what actually fits your strengths and interests.

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A Simple Exercise That Can Help

If you’re still unsure after those three questions, this is the exercise I wish someone had given me earlier.

Take ten minutes. Find a quiet space, grab a piece of paper, open the notes app on your phone — whatever works for you. Then write down two lists.

First, ask yourself: what do I enjoy most about my current role? What parts of your day energize you? What types of tasks do you look forward to? When do you feel most engaged in your work?

Then write down the opposite. What drains you? What parts of the job feel exhausting? What tasks make you feel frustrated or depleted?

When you step back and look at those two lists, patterns start to appear. And those patterns can help you think about what kind of roles might allow you to spend more time doing what you enjoy — and less time doing what drains you.

Ideally, the work you choose should include a majority of the tasks that energize you — not the other way around. Because whatever specialty or role you choose, you’ll be spending a significant portion of your life doing that work.

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Choosing With Intention

I’m not anti-NP school. I’m not here to discourage anyone from becoming a nurse practitioner. Nursing needs skilled nurse practitioners, and I genuinely love seeing nurses grow and expand in this profession.

But what I don’t want is for nurses to default into roles simply because they seem like the next logical step.

I want us choosing roles intentionally. Roles that align with the kind of work we enjoy, the way we like to work, and the type of life we want to create.

Because when people are working in roles that truly fit them, something interesting happens. Burnout often decreases. Not because the work is easy. But because the work is aligned.

So if you’re thinking about NP school right now, pause and ask yourself these three questions. And if, after reflecting on them, the answer is still a clear yes, then go for it.

But if there’s hesitation, give yourself the space to explore that feeling.

Because the goal isn’t just to keep moving forward. The goal is to move forward in the direction that actually fits you.

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About the Author

Amy Anne Felix is a nurse practitioner and the creator of The Nurse Sabbatical, a thought-leadership platform exploring nursing culture, rest, identity, and life redesign. Through storytelling and systems reflection, she examines how mid-career nurse practitioners can build aligned, sustainable careers without abandoning their identity.