Conservative school for DNP? - Page 2

I'm not sure if this is what the OP meant, but I can give a bit of my own (very recent) experiences in school. We learned a LOT about underserved populations, healthcare reform, PPACA, racial healthcare disparities, community health service, volunteering, disaster services, etc. We learned NOTHING about how to deal with billing for insurance companies, how to get paid for what you do, diagnostic coding. We learned very little about procedural coding.

For me, that was okay because I had many years working outpatient in physician practices before I went for my ANP. For many other of my peers, that wasn't so good because now they are in their first jobs and have no idea how to make themselves valuable to their employers (by getting paid appropriately for services rendered) which is bound to have a negative effect on their salary negotiations.

I think there is great value in exposure to underserved populations and so forth; but not all of us intend to work in those type of positions and we need to be paid or we won't have jobs in the future.

What I'm struggling with is understanding what the OP meant by the "liberal/conservative" agenda thing ... and interested that s/he has not returned to clarify.

The political orientation of the school I attend means very little. Either the school offers a strong career foundation or it doesn't. Going for a more "conservative" school doesn't mean that it will do any better at preparing you for the DNP role. And as other people have said, understanding healthcare disparities and underserved populations isn't a "liberal" concern; it's a concern for all of us as we try to grapple with current healthcare realities in our country. We can't just close our eyes and pretend the poor don't exist. You can come up with liberal solutions or conservative solutions whatever that means for you, but to me it isn't "conservatism" to say "I don't want to hear nothing about no underserved populations."

There is a difference between practical education (billing and coding) and what the OP seems to label as "liberal" education - learning about the population(s) we are being prepared to treat. These don't have to be mutually exclusive - my program did an excellent job of mercilessly drilling both billing&coding and underserved healthcare into our heads. Personally I think both are appropriate topics for graduate education.

Caring about poor people, obviously.

OP, you are just going to have to wait for Oral Roberts to open a DNP school.

Good luck with that.
Rich people can afford someone with MD after their name. They're not going to want a "mere nurse." They sure don't want students practicing on them.

Perhaps one should learn how to be an NP before considering their political agenda. It is kind of like basic nursing school when you have to clean poop. Yes you really will need to treat poor underserved patients. When you are finished and licensed if you can manage to find a position that does not include that population so be it.