10. To demon­strate my com­mit­ment to prac­tice. In con­trast to a PhD-​​prepared nurse, whose career may be focused on knowl­edge devel­op­ment and research, a doc­tor­ate of nurs­ing prac­tice– (DNP-​​) pre­pared nurse has a career that may be rooted in practice.

9. Everybody’s doing it. Phar­ma­cists already have made a doc­tor­ate the min­i­mum edu­ca­tion required for prac­tice. Phys­i­cal ther­a­pists have a goal of doc­tor­ate entry by 2015. Nurs­ing is mov­ing this direc­tion also. Growth in the num­ber of doctorate-​​prepared nurses speaks vol­umes about the dis­tinc­tion of nurs­ing as a unique profession.

8. They will call me “doc­tor.”  The Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion already has begun to make its dis­sent heard on this issue; how­ever, I see this as a great oppor­tu­nity to edu­cate patients about the var­i­ous roles and titles of the mem­bers of their health­care team. Con­fus­ing patients is a flimsy rea­son to avoid call­ing doc­tor­ate pre­pared nurses doc­tor. I still hear patients call MAs their nurse.  Every­one on the team has a respon­si­bil­ity (and right) to iden­tify them­selves to every patient by their name, title, and role.

7. DNPs have a thriv­ing com­mu­nity. The Doc­tors of Nurs­ing Prac­tice com­mu­nity is the out­growth of the work of DNP stu­dents to pro­mote, com­mu­ni­cate, doc­u­ment, and con­nect the work of DNP-​​prepared nurses.

6. DNPs will bridge the theory-​​practice gap. Ide­ally, the DNP will be an expert in evidence-​​based prac­tice imple­men­ta­tion and will effec­tively bring all that the­ory to the bedside.

5. Aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions offer a bachelor’s entry option. Although not all insti­tu­tions offer this, I found it to be a great option, espe­cially because I was so enthu­si­as­tic about jump­ing head­first into my grad­u­ate education.

4. DNPs will be well-​​prepared to lead in inter­pro­fes­sional health­care set­tings. DNP pre­pared nurses are expert team builders and cross the nurse-​​doctor party lines. Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Col­leges in Nurs­ing, “DNP mem­bers of these teams have advanced prepa­ra­tion in the inter­pro­fes­sional dimen­sion of health care that enable them to facil­i­tate col­lab­o­ra­tive team func­tion­ing and over­come imped­i­ments to inter­pro­fes­sional prac­tice” (p. 14).

3. The IOM rec­om­mends it. One of the rec­om­men­da­tions from the IOM’s 2010 report The Future of Nurs­ing: Lead­ing Change, Advanc­ing Health  rec­om­mends that the cur­rent num­ber of doctorate-​​prepared nurses dou­ble by the year 2020.

2. DNPs can teach. I was a lit­tle wor­ried about not being as attrac­tive to aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions being DNP-​​prepared if I decided I wanted to teach at any point in my career. How­ever, DNP pre­pared nurses are needed as edu­ca­tors also. Addi­tion­ally, col­lab­o­ra­tions between DNPs and PhDs will drive prac­tice improve­ment, health­care reform, and bet­ter patient outcomes.

1. DNPs are pio­neers. Nurses have been earn­ing doc­tor­ate degrees spe­cific to the pro­fes­sion since 1924 when Teacher’s Col­lege at Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity began grant­ing the EdD in nurs­ing edu­ca­tion. The DNS and DNSc also have been avail­able as options for nurses seek­ing higher edu­ca­tion; how­ever, ever since the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky enrolled the first DNP class in 2001, DNP-​​prepared nurses have grown expo­nen­tially. Although rel­a­tively new, the num­bers are grow­ing because more and more nurses rec­og­nize that this edu­ca­tional prepa­ra­tion is valu­able. DNP-​​prepared nurses have the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the cur­rent health­care sys­tem and con­tribute mean­ing­fully to the evo­lu­tion of our profession.

No related posts.