Medicine decries nurse doctorate exam being touted as equal to physician testing

The truth is that the A.M.A. is concerned with the bad publicity they will receive when advanced nurses start taking the equivalent of the USMLE. THEY WILL DO OUTSTANDING. Nothing like the motivation of those with something to prove.

Sorry folks, but I think the very concept of a Doctor of Nursing is absurd. Like others have said, if you want to be a doctor go to med school. The NP program is quite enough.

Your comment is absurd! Doctoral level education is available to most people in a huge variety of fields...literature, child development, education, engineering, law, etc. The list goes on and on, so why in the h*ll would you say that is absurd to have doctorate level of education available to nurses?????? Your comment is offensive to all who value the importance of education.

I spoke with Mary Mundinger, who is a member of the CACC and the dean of the Columbia University School of Nursing (which has a DNP program), about the exam. Munginder stressed during our interview that the exam is not meant to make a DNP more like a physician. She said the following:

I don’t think the DNP is a goal to be more like a physician; what we are doing with this exam is testing the medical knowledge that an advanced-practice nurse at the doctoral level has to achieve to give comprehensive care.

Mundinger pointed out that NPs provide quality care, and that the DNP and this new exam are meant to offer opportunities for growth and freedom in different practice settings.

It doesn’t mean that the quality is less for a master’s-prepared NP, but it means that someone who achieves the DNP — the clinical DNP, the certification-level competencies — has got new skills. They’re more likely to be able to take on ER evaluations, admit and manage their hospital patients — it doesn’t mean master’s-level nurses can’t learn to do that, they can — but we have formalized that in a degree program. So it’s really an incremental step in measuring competency.

I spoke with Mary Mundinger, who is a member of the CACC and the dean of the Columbia University School of Nursing (which has a DNP program), about the exam. Mundinder stressed during our interview that the exam is not meant to make a DNP more like a physician. She said the following:

I don’t think the DNP is a goal to be more like a physician; what we are doing with this exam is testing the medical knowledge that an advanced-practice nurse at the doctoral level has to achieve to give comprehensive care.

I think the idea of a test that assesses our medical knowledge is a good idea. If the test has been modified and adapted from a test that is frequently used to assess students/residents I think that is great. I think if NP students are only passing at a 50 percent rate then that is telling for two reasons:

1) The test still needs to be adapted more to fairly reflect what is taught.

2) The test is demonstrating that what is being taught ALSO needs to be modified.

...A PhD in my mind deserves to be called Doctor, and the AMA can just learn to move on as far as titles are concerned since historically PhDs have been Doctors for a long long time...

I am not familiar with Dr Mundinger, and I hope this test is not really being touted as physician equivalency, but I applaud her efforts to help design a test that will raise the standards.

Ivan

The problem is, though, that the DNPs from one of the top schools (Columbia) had a 50% pass rate on an extremely easy exam (USMLE Step III) that was made even easier for the DNPs AND they lowered the standards of passing. That's pretty telling of the DNP program. If they make the exam any easier, then why bother taking it at all?

Also, no one has argued that PhD's don't deserve to be called doctor. But I don't see my literature professor walking around the hospital calling himself a doctor. Like I mentioned in my previous post, a PhD is different than a clinical doctor. If you say you're a doctor in a clinical setting, people assume you're MD/DO.

And here's a quote from Mundinger, which kinda shows that she's the one being driven by greed, not the AMA:

'Mary O'Neil Mundinger, DrPH, RN, dean of Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, was quoted as saying: "If nurses can show they can pass the same test at the same level of competency, there's no rational argument for reimbursing them at a lower rate or giving them less authority in caring for patients."'

We know that it was NOT the same test and that it was NOT passed at the same level of competency.

A PhD is not the same as a clinical doctorate. You're comparing PhD's to DNP (a clinical doctorate).