DNP for Neonatal Nurse Practitioners?

Specialties Doctoral

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I know that there is a move to Doctorally prepare all of the Nurse Practitioners. In regards to the NICU, since these NNPs are integrated into the unit would it cause more confusion with families? Will the DNP be of the most use to an NNP or is better for NPs in primary care? Thanks!

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I'm not sure that it would cause more confusion to families, in as much as I still would just introduce my self as "Kaytee the Nurse Practitioner helping to take care of your baby." It really depends on what you want to do with a DNP. Do you want to teach or do research in academia? For me, I wasn't willing to spend an extra year and $30K for the doctorate since I wouldn't see returns on it and I personally don't think it changes how a person practices. There is a shift towards DNP but even now there's only one DNP student in my class of 16.

I think if you're relatively young and have just a few years of NICU experience, I'd say go for the DNP. - why not? If not, stick with MSN. I personally don't see that much difference.

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

There is no way they can mandate that NPs be doctorally prepared until they decide that the BSN is the entry degree to nursing... and that hasn't happened yet, over a hundred years later haha.

There's nowhere near the amount of faculty available to train every NP as DNP.

I think in the sense that the (at least current) goal is to have DNP graduates take a national board exam similar to the USMLE Step exams is an example of how the DNP really hasn't become that attractive to NNPs. There's no way they can make us take a national exam on subject matter that is across the lifespan when our entire clinical experience and knowlege is from 23 weeks gestation through age 2... and most of us haven't care for an infant past 1 year.

For me, there is no financial or personal incentive to take on 30-45k in debt, and spend 2-4 years in school for a degree that gets me nothing but a title. It does nothing to expand my scope of practice.

I do see some attraction to the research and science side of it, which now that I have been practicing as a NP for 5 years...has me wishing I had paid more attention to stats, research, etc back in school to apply to practice today, vs just surviving grad school.

In any case, good luck with whatever you choose...who knows- I may go back for my DNP someday but not until some benefits are seen to offset the costs.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Several NNPs in our NICU have their DNP, as have a couple PNPs who work with the NICU stepdown kids and well babies in newborn.

Some of the curriculum in my DNP program is applicable to all NPs and some will depend on which track a student is in. Some classes ALL of us have to take, and some classes only the FNP students have to take (or the AGNPs, or the education/leadership-track post-masters DNPs or the NNPs or whatever). I can see the value of some of the DNP classes I've taken being beneficial to NNPs, but they're not going to make a NNP take Adult Primary Care, just never gonna happen. :)

I haven't asked the NICU NPs what their motivation was behind going for their DNPs, but if I had to guess I'd say a mix of personal goal fulfillment, a desire to stay ahead of the game (on the off-chance DNP ever becomes a mandate), and increased marketability. We are lucky in my state to have several very affordable DNP options so they aren't looking at huge amounts of debt, especially not for a NP who works through school.

One thing I do like about my program (and this may be specific to my program) is that we actually take boards a semester before we graduate. Because we won't actually have all the practice hours at the time, they won't confer the certification until after we graduate, but once May rolls around and we sent AANP/ANCC our diploma, we get our cert and can start practicing. Saves us a couple months of studying. That's a bit OT to NICU NNP-DNPs. Sorry. Rambling.

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

One thing I do like about my program (and this may be specific to my program) is that we actually take boards a semester before we graduate. Because we won't actually have all the practice hours at the time, they won't confer the certification until after we graduate, but once May rolls around and we sent AANP/ANCC our diploma, we get our cert and can start practicing. Saves us a couple months of studying. That's a bit OT to NICU NNP-DNPs. Sorry. Rambling.

ANCC must have changed the rules. I know when I was about to graduate the biggest reason for the delay in getting eligibility to sit for the boards was waiting for the university to grant us the degree which ANCC required. Some students pressured our university (to no avail) and pleaded with ANCC, but only got the eligibility as soon as they got the degree (not any time before that). I, however, used the delay to plan out my self-review strategy for the boards.

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