Clueless about what I think is DNP

[Student4_life]

OK so I appologize if this is a taboo topic, I am brand new to the community and couldn't find what I was looking for by browsing the forum.

I am 25 years old, a veteran of OIF AND OEF, and I am taking a 180 by starting a pre-BSN program this fall at a community college and will be transfering to either Johns Hopkins or University of Maryland in two years. I am persuing this with the intent of going on to become a Family Nurse Practitioner, but am unsure of how this route works. I am aware that it is hard as of late for new nurses to get a job out of school, can one go right into a MSN program? Do I have to get a MSN prior to starting a Family Nurse Practitioner program? What is DNP? Are the majority of the pre-reqs the same for all MSN programs?

I chose to go the Family Nurse Practitioner route over the PA route due to the building process of being a nurse. I am open to Admin jobs as well as hands on, I really just enjoy helping others. And of course hopefully you fell the same way and will throw the new guy some good advice.

[llg, PhD, RN]

The "short version" to answer your basic questions is that the FNP education has traditionally been offered as a Master's Degree ... obtained after a person has graduated with a BSN and usually after a getting a little clinical experience prior to starting the MSN program focusing on the FNP role.

However, over the past few years, a lot of other educational programs have opened up that streamline the traditional BSN to MSN route. There are accelerated programs to get you through faster and bridge programs to enable people to skip a step. For example, a person can get an Associate's Degree in nursing and then go to an ADN-MSN program that combines the BSN and MSN requirements into 1 course of study. Also, people with BS degrees in other fields can go to programs designed to get them into advanced nursing roles more quickly by offering an entry-level MSN program.

So, each person has to explore their local options and choose the one option that seems best for their personal circumstances. Since you have already decided on JHU or Univ. of Md. ... I would suggest you sit down with their counselors and review everything they have to offer. You might also want to do the same with some other schools in the region. You never know what you might find.

Finally ... there is the "new degree on the block." The DNP has been established to provide a practice oriented doctorate for nurses in advanced roles who are not interested in being academicians and who don't want a PhD. The DNP is not required for practice as an FNP, but a lot of people want to make it mandatory in the future for all nurse practitioners. We'll have to wait and see what happens with that.