Nursing doctoral program to be offered
The University of Indianapolis will offer a Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree for students who want a post-master’s education in nursing. The D.N.P. is designed to be the terminal degree for the clinical doctorate.
“There are a lot of ways to exit your academic career, ‘terminal’ meaning there is no degree to get after that,” said Anne Thomas, dean and associate professor of the School of Nursing.
The program has been in development for the past 10 years and is still being finalized. While the D.N.P. is a clinical doctorate, the Ph.D. has been available for 30 years at UIndy, according to Barbara Kelly, clinical director of the School of Nursing.
Thomas said that the directors need to see an exemplary skill set in clinical nurses.
Kelly added that clinical doctors need a higher level of education, necessitating the D.N.P.
The doctorate requires approximately 90 to 100 credit hours, and 1000 clinical hours also must be completed. The program is designed to take two and a half years (including summer semesters), with two classes per semester. Some students also pursue a Ph.D. after obtaining a D.N.P, because they are a research and clinical degree, respectively.
“We work with [the students] to give them a pragmatic base clinical so they can pull research from theory to clinical. A Ph.D. can’t do both,” Kelly said.
Thomas noted that several recent enhancements have helped to advance the program.
“There has been a need to increase the educational degree,” Thomas said. A lot of the clinical master’s degrees, like nurse practitioner and nurse midwifery, can be anywhere from 45-60 credit hours.”
The D.N.P. is intended as a route to further educate current nursing students. The National Organization of Nurse Practitioners faculty has endorsed the D.N.P. as the entry-level education for nurse practitioners.
“What we’ve seen is that as technology has advanced, people needed to have more education,” Thomas said.
To that end, more schools are working to provide similar programs.
Thomas’ role is to help design, implement, and evaluate the program. The curriculum is faculty-driven. Kelly has worked with two other faculty members to compose background information for the program curriculum.
“Right now, the curriculum has been approved in concept through our graduate curriculum committee,” Thomas said. “We’ve got the courses essentially mapped out, so now it’s just moving that forward and putting the policies in place.”
Admission to the program will begin in late fall, 2011. Thomas believes UIndy has very successful nurse practitioner and nurse midwifery tracks, so offering the D.N.P. is a natural evolution in the cycle.
“This university has done well with its clinical doctorate,” Kelly said. “We’re not an IU or Purdue where the Ph.D.s can do research line and stay there for 30 years.”
The American Academy of Nursing has said that it recommends that the D.N.P. be the entry-level education into practice for advanced practice registered nurses and they want it done by 2015.
The D.N.P. has leadership courses for those with clinical experience and allows more people with the degree to teach. Recruiting nurses with doctorates to teach has been difficult. The D.N.P. will help add faculty numbers, according to Kelly.
“I think this gives nurse practitioners an added skill set,” Thomas said, “to provide them with more autonomy, more leadership, the ability to sit at the table with executives and assist in designing and leading health care.”
