Established in 2008, the Doctorate of Nursing practice (DNP) is a program designed to prepare the nurse at an advanced level of nursing science. The program emphasizes the development of the student’s capacity to impact the clinical setting as leaders and educators and to utilize clinical research to improve and transform health care. This program is based on the understanding that nursing provides services which includes the direct care of individual clients, management of care for populations, administration of nursing systems, and development and implementation of health policy. Advanced practice nurses with practice doctorates will address significant practice issues in a scholarly way, adopt broad system perspectives for health promotion and risk reduction, and act as agents of change that transform client/community care, participate in the on-going evaluation of health care outcomes, and assist in the translation of research that leads to positive nursing practice changes.
The purposes of the Doctor of Nursing Practice program are:
- To prepare clinically focused advanced practice nurses who are capable of translating knowledge into the clinical setting that contributes to the positive development of individuals, families, communities, society and the discipline of nursing.
- To prepare clinically focused advanced practice nurses who will be capable of addressing the multiple weaknesses in the current health care systems through roles as leaders, educators and agents of change.
- To prepare leaders for the discipline and profession of nursing that will have the skills to address issues of health disparities in an urban environment.
The program pathways are:
Applicants can enter the DNP program as a post-BSN student or as a student who has attained a master’s of science in nursing (MSN) degree with a clinical specialty or as a student who has attained a master’s of science in nursing without a clinical specialty. Post-BSN students will complete training in a clinical specialty as part of their DNP degree, which will qualify them to sit for clinical specialty certification. Post-MSN students who don’t currently have a clinical specialty will take classes as part of the DNP that will qualify them to sit for clinical specialty certification. More information about the three paths to a Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree can be obtained here.
