DNP seems like a waste...

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Anyone else think the powers that be wasted a great opportunity with the DNP recommended curriculum? I seems to be mainly research focused, with little (if any) advanced clinical knowledge. What's the point? It would have been a wonderful way to increase the anemic clinical hours in NP programs (from 600ish to a more respectable 1500+). Thoughts?

Specializes in Primary Care and ICU.

My DNP program has 1000 hour requirements for the BSN-DNP. The curriculum is a strong mix of patho, anatomy, pharm, theory and caring. I believe it depends on the school. Researching your options is key.

Specializes in FNP, ONP.

I have a very strong appreciation for my DNP education. I made certain that all of my work was directed at expanding my knowledge and understanding of something that was important to me, and my capstone project was the culmination of those studies and dovetails perfectly with a major focus of my practice (it would be inaccurate to call it a specialty but I do a lot of it and have garnered a reputation for being a "go to" person in the area). My capstone has gotten me a lot of local recognition, helped get my fledgling practice (I am an independent provider) off to a roaring start thanks to local media coverage; my panel was full and I stopped accepting new patients less than 14 months after opening my practice. I have presented my capstone data to the Governor and the state legislature and state wide initiatives, while not exactly a duplicate of my project but based on my research question and my outcome data, have been implemented for the target population and thousands of people have benefited. An untold number of people will benefit in a myriad of ways that I may never fully appreciate. None of that would have been possible without my DNP education and capstone experience. It has definitely made me a better provider and helped me impact my community in incredible ways I wouldn't have thought possible. Not a week doesn't go by that I don't realize some additional benefit from my DNP experience and I feel extraordinarily lucky to have been able to pursue it.

Would a stronger consensus about what the DNP is and is not be helpful? Absolutely. Could many programs do a better job of designing and implementing their DNP programs? I am sure of it. Would all NPs benefit from more clinical time during their education? Without a doubt. But none of these areas for improvement is a reason to avoid a DNP program. It is much easier to affect change from within. If you want to see Professional Nursing improve, suit up and get in the game.

I'm headed to the AANP conference next week and will be presenting a poster based on my capstone. If any of you are going, be sure to head in to the exhibitions and say hi!

Specializes in ICU, CV-Thoracic Sx, Internal Medicine.
APN independence has everything to do with politics and lobbying. It has nothing to do the amount of education or type of degree an APN has. You could have the most prepared NPs with 12 degrees each, but lobbyists are always going to be telling/buying politicians that APNs are not safe without physician supervision. We know this isn't true, but truth and politics are rarely bed fellows.

One of the best responses I have read on this board.

Specializes in Adult Health.

My MSN program required 720 hours of clinical. I had 967. If I had realized I was so close to 1000, I would have done the last 33. We had to meet the minimum number of hours, but we were encouraged to go over. Now I'm in a DNP program and we have to do a minimum of 720 hours again, so by the time I'm done I'll have about 2,000 hours. It's all clinical and every class I'm taking is related to what I'm doing because even the non-clinical classes teach critical thinking and how to evaluate new studies, etc. I agree, some graduate work is fluff, but I don't agree that every MSN or DNP program is full of it.

I'm on the fence about the DNP program. I agree with a lot of the comments posted here. For the people who say they're either in a DNP program or have completed one, how long did you wait after you received your MSN to enroll? I'm starting a MSN program this fall and will be a FNP in two years. My husband and I would like to start our family after I'm done with school, and when I mentioned possibly pursuing a DNP down the road, he looked like he may faint. Haha. I was wondering if this is something I should do soon after getting my MSN or if it would benefit me to work a few years before going back.

Maybe you need to read more about the history of nursing- how we have been oppressed by a male dominant population for years, how our predecessors have struggled to get our field recognized as a profession, the fact that we all too often operate off of a medical format instead of a nursing one that sees the patient holistically. That is why we need more nursing research. That is where evidence based practice comes from. I started as an LPN so I have no problem with novice nurses, but before you participate in lateral violence, educate yourself. The DNP will be the one who looks at bedside practice and works to improve processes and patient care. The DNP does research, teaches and nurses and yes, I am in school to be a DNP.

Specializes in Anesthesia.
Maybe you need to read more about the history of nursing- how we have been oppressed by a male dominant population for years, how our predecessors have struggled to get our field recognized as a profession, the fact that we all too often operate off of a medical format instead of a nursing one that sees the patient holistically. That is why we need more nursing research. That is where evidence based practice comes from. I started as an LPN so I have no problem with novice nurses, but before you participate in lateral violence, educate yourself. The DNP will be the one who looks at bedside practice and works to improve processes and patient care. The DNP does research, teaches and nurses and yes, I am in school to be a DNP.

I think you need to read more about the history of nursing, and Florence Nightingale in particular. I would argue that female leaders in nursing have done much more to oppress the nursing profession than any male or other profession throughout history. Florence Nightingale did this by making the nursing profession subservient to physicians and nearly completely closing the nursing profession to males for several decades.

http://ijahsp.nova.edu/articles/Vol9Num2/pdf/Wolfenden.pdf.

Nurses need to participate and do research. We need to get away from labeling research done by nurses as "nursing research". There shouldn't be a notable difference in the research produced by one medical/scientific researcher versus another one. Nurses are the only group that I know of that seeks to constantly try to label the research based on their professional degree. I will start my PhD in nursing next year and I am considering looking at modulators of TRPV1 receptors for my dissertation. The only thing related to nursing about the research is that I am a nurse.

There is a lot of variation in DNP programs, and many seem to have taken a path that focuses more on administration and research than on patient care. Most that I have looked at seemed like a waste of time, money and oxygen, but a few out there (take a look at Rush University's curriculum) seem to be more interested in producing DNPs who could truly be effective in a primary care role. I think the problem stems from the academic world "drinking their own bathwater" and not understanding the future trends in healthcare delivery. I suspect that there will be a lot of fallout and realignment among some of these "admin/research" programs in the coming years as the healthcare industry realizes that most of those DNP degrees don't really produce a better-qualified APRN.

Specializes in CT ICU, OR, Orthopedic.

I graduate with my DNP in two weeks. I have learned a lot more than just "research"...Not sure why that is such a dirty word. Isn't that how we are supposed to practice? Evidenced based practice? Who better to do certain types of research than those who actually work in the field? The purpose of the DNP is not to do research. It is to take the research that already exists and put it into action. We all know that there is a ton of research out there that is never actually put into practice. It often takes 10-15 years for what we know is the better way to do things to actually become policy. The purpose of the DNP is to teach advance practice nurses to take the evidence and bring it to the bedside. The project I did was about enteral nutrition, and gastric residual volumes. I did not create new knowledge. I took knowledge that already existed, and implemented a new enteral nutrition protocol in the ICU that I worked in. I learned how to collaborate with other disciplines. I learned a lot. I took my core NP classes with the MSN students, and had about 1000 more clinical hours. So I did get more clinical time. I agree that some things could be done differently. For example, I would like to see the DNP go to a generalized family nurse practitioner degree with a focused specialty. That would alleviate the constraints that NPs face when it comes working outside of their specialty/population.

I have no desire to be called "doctor". I don't even like being called "professor" and I teach undergrad nursing. I just want the best education to be able to do my job. Getting my doctorate was a personal choice for me. I feel like I have to explain myself when MSNs snub me and assume that I think I am better than them (I don't even have any experience, why the heck would I think that?).

This topic has now become the old, ADN/BSN topic. It seems so silly to me that we even argue about it. There are ADN nurses that can run circles around me. There are staff RNs that I will look to for guidance because of their expertise. We are all nurses. We are all here for the good of the patient. This shouldn't be a turf war.

Specializes in critcal care, CRNA.
I graduate with my DNP in two weeks. I have learned a lot more than just "research"...Not sure why that is such a dirty word. Isn't that how we are supposed to practice? Evidenced based practice? Who better to do certain types of research than those who actually work in the field? The purpose of the DNP is not to do research. It is to take the research that already exists and put it into action. We all know that there is a ton of research out there that is never actually put into practice. It often takes 10-15 years for what we know is the better way to do things to actually become policy. The purpose of the DNP is to teach advance practice nurses to take the evidence and bring it to the bedside. The project I did was about enteral nutrition, and gastric residual volumes. I did not create new knowledge. I took knowledge that already existed, and implemented a new enteral nutrition protocol in the ICU that I worked in. I learned how to collaborate with other disciplines. I learned a lot. I took my core NP classes with the MSN students, and had about 1000 more clinical hours. So I did get more clinical time. I agree that some things could be done differently. For example, I would like to see the DNP go to a generalized family nurse practitioner degree with a focused specialty. That would alleviate the constraints that NPs face when it comes working outside of their specialty/population.

I have no desire to be called "doctor". I don't even like being called "professor" and I teach undergrad nursing. I just want the best education to be able to do my job. Getting my doctorate was a personal choice for me. I feel like I have to explain myself when MSNs snub me and assume that I think I am better than them (I don't even have any experience, why the heck would I think that?).

This topic has now become the old, ADN/BSN topic. It seems so silly to me that we even argue about it. There are ADN nurses that can run circles around me. There are staff RNs that I will look to for guidance because of their expertise. We are all nurses. We are all here for the good of the patient. This shouldn't be a turf war.

Not all DNPs are created equal in regards to clinical experience. My colleague received his DNP and I received my MSN around the same graduation date. His school was 36 months and mine was 28 months yet I did well over 200 more cases than he did. I have also seen some anesthesia schools start their DNP with a online semester before students start at the campus. Thus they did not gain any extra clinical time but they just added courses.

Specializes in Anesthesia.

That is going to be true no matter what the degree is. My MSN was the same way. There some NA schools that were graduating students with 500-600 cases while my class averaged around 1100.

Specializes in critcal care, CRNA.
That is going to be true no matter what the degree is. My MSN was the same way. There some NA schools that were graduating students with 500-600 cases while my class averaged around 1100.

Yeah I had around 1,000 when I stopped putting them in the computer when they finalized out counts in February. I still worked in clinical through May so I had a bunch more. I was just saying that a university making their program a DNP doesn't necessarily mean that the clinical experience will be more extensive.

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