Advancing Practice

School of Nursing's new D.N.P. program spotlights evidence-based care

Advanced-practice nurses now have the option to continue their education beyond the master’s-degree level while keeping the focus on patient care. An alternative to the research-intensive Ph.D. emphasizes a higher level of expertise.

In August, the first crop of students began coursework in the School of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (D.N.P.) program, a degree program that’s not only new to the University of Mississippi Medical Center but also a new concept nationally.

“This has been talked about in nursing for five, six, seven years,” said Dr. Barbara Boss, professor of nursing and director of the program. “It has become - in a very short period of time - a very hot issue.”

Boss said the nation’s first D.N.P. classes graduated in the last couple of years. The idea is so new that the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) began the accreditation process for D.N.P. programs in the fall of last year, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

The concept is simple: Ever-expanding scientific knowledge coupled with an increasingly complex health-care climate demands more training and preparation of staff nurses. The D.N.P. is geared toward advanced-practice nurses such as nurse practitioners, midwives and nurse anesthetists - professionals who already have their master’s degrees, although Boss said nurse administrators have shown a great deal of interest in the program as well.

“The focus of this training and education is not on one-on-one care but how to deliver the best evidence-based care,” Boss said. The type of care that specializes in complex issues like dealing with patients who have limited means or those who have multiple issues, she said.

The program will consist of two years of coursework plus a capstone inquiry which may take up to an additional year to complete.

“We started talking about ours three or four years ago through deans and directors meetings,” said Sharon Lobert, professor of nursing and associate dean for graduate studies in the School of Nursing. She said the statewide Deans and Directors Group created a curriculum and presented it to the state Institutes of Higher Learning.

As a result, the IHL approved a single D.N.P. program that would be offered at UMMC as well as the University of Southern Mississippi, which, Boss explained, is exactly how UMMC’s nursing Ph.D. program got started 10 years ago.

The use of this “consortium model” stemmed from a concern over duplicating resources, according to Boss. The program will require no new faculty members, she said, and the courses and objectives will be virtually identical.

Ten students, most of whom work full-time as staff nurses or nurse practitioners, began the first term at the Medical Center this month.

“We’ve told students it will come in different formats,” Boss said. “There’ll be a traditional format for certain courses, some courses will be online. But we won’t use a lot of distance learning.”

Boss, who will teach classes in addition to her role as director of the program, plans to use an “intensive format” - all day Fridays and part of the day on Saturdays. The idea is to schedule classes around the students’ work schedules as much as possible.

“We’ll try a variety of formats to see what works best,” said Boss.

For the moment, the program only accepts students who already have their master’s degrees, but Lobert says they hope to make it available for baccalaureate students within five years.

Overall, nine faculty members will handle instruction duties. Although the D.N.P. program will mean more hard work for faculty members, Lobert says it’s work they are happy to take on.

“It’s definitely something that everyone is excited about. We feel like it will really improve practice. It’ll take a lot of hard work, but the faculty is very committed to this.”

-Matt Westerfield

2009-08-17 00:00:00 18964