2015 DNP

Specialties Doctoral

Published

I am wondering if anyone has heard any updates.

Everything I keep seeing online from the AACN is "recommendation", "strongly encouraged", "highly suggested".

I have yet to see anything, that says, "Look, either you graduate and pass your boards by January 1, 2015 or you can put the MSN you have in back of the closet and start working on your DNP, because the MSN isn't good enough anymore to sit for national certification."

There are many of us, including myself, that will be finishing probably in 2013 or 2014...now, we would all like to think that we would pass our certification the first go-round, but we all know that may or may not happen for some of us.

Example: You graduate in June 2014 with your MSN and it is January, 2015, you still cannot pass your certification exam...does that mean you have to go back to school or you cannot practice?

I have seen some colleges that have completely phased out MSN programs but I have seen MANY that have not...that makes me wonder if it is not going to be a "go" like they are claiming that it is.

I would love to hear from those that keep up with this sort of thing...that may have more insight.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
You disappoint from the lack of use of research and then try to make claims that more education does not do anything to improve patient care and more education is nothing but a business/universities trying to make money.

*** What!? Sorry but you have mistaken another person's comments for mine. I did not say anything like that. I don't think that is the case so would not voice an opinion contrary to what I believe. I have absolutely no doubt that more (appropriate) education does improve patient care. Exactly why I have been such an advocate of more and better nurse education on this board and in my career. However we haven't been discussing weather or not more education improves patient care.

I serious believe that you have either confused me with another poster or are engaged in wishful reading.

No, you try to make points about articles you haven't evaluated and you continue to bring in opinions with no proof. I on the other hand posted peer reviewed articles, expert opinions, and statements from professional organizations.

*** No you haven't. The peer reviewed articles and expert opinions you posted are off topic and do not concern the subject of BSN as entry to practice. Of course, reading the subject line on this thread reminds me that any discussion of BSN as entry to practice is off topic. My bad.

Specializes in Anesthesia.
*** What!? Sorry but you have mistaken another person's comments for mine. I did not say anything like that. I don't think that is the case so would not voice an opinion contrary to what I believe. I have absolutely no doubt that more (appropriate) education does improve patient care. Exactly why I have been such an advocate of more and better nurse education on this board and in my career. However we haven't been discussing weather or not more education improves patient care.

I serious believe that you have either confused me with another poster or are engaged in wishful reading.

Nope post 209 on here from you, and you have argued all along that DNP or a BSN would/does not improve patient care or anything else worth while.

*** No you haven't. The peer reviewed articles and expert opinions you posted are off topic and do not concern the subject of BSN as entry to practice.

Yes, they actually do. There is almost a whole page of one post that shows research concerning better outcomes with BSN prepared nurses from a link advocating the BSN as entry to practice or at the least to having different levels of nurses based on education levels.

I think you are missing a couple of posts...

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Nope post 209 on here from you, and you have argued all along that DNP or a BSN would/does not improve patient care or anything else worth while.

And this:

You disappoint from the lack of use of research and then try to make claims that more education does not do anything to improve patient care and more education is nothing but a business/universities trying to make money.

*** You are mixing subjects.

Yes, they actually do. There is almost a whole page of one post that shows research concerning better outcomes with BSN prepared nurses from a link advocating the BSN as entry to practice or at the least to having different levels of nurses based on education levels.

I think you are missing a couple of posts...

*** Any study that doesn't differentiate between nurses who enter practice with an ADN and nurses who enter with a BSN isn't applicable to a discussion about BSN as entry to practice.

A question. Have you read any of the evaluations of the Aiken study that make a case fro a very flawed study and /or a biased researcher? If not I can find them for you.

Specializes in Anesthesia.
And this:

*** You are mixing subjects.

*** Any study that doesn't differentiate between nurses who enter practice with an ADN and nurses who enter with a BSN isn't applicable to a discussion about BSN as entry to practice.

A question. Have you read any of the evaluations of the Aiken study that make a case fro a very flawed study and /or a biased researcher? If not I can find them for you.

Go ahead and post the evaluations, but I made sure those were not the only studies I posted. I think you have made it clear your regards to BSN education and the DNP. Are you not the one that had stated your BSN made your dumber? And even though you expressed no personal knowledge of the DNP you have downplayed its usefulness and equated it to a money making scheme or was the money making scheme only about BSNs.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Go ahead and post the evaluations, but I made sure those were not the only studies I posted.

*** Yes I will see if I can find them and post them here, even though the studies you posted are off topic and unrelated to a BSN as entry to practice discussion. BSN as entry to practice, and requiring all RNs to have BSNs are very different things.

I think you have made it clear your regards to BSN education and the DNP. Are you not the one that had stated your BSN made your dumber?

*** Yes, the time I spent on it would have been much better spent on education. I missed out on valuable training and education to spend time jumping through the hoops to obtain a BSN. Oh well it was free and I got to do quite a bit of the hoop jumping on paid time. I very much wish I had not done it. If I had it to do over again I would skip the BSN.

And even though you expressed no personal knowledge of the DNP you have downplayed its usefulness and equated it to a money making scheme or was the money making scheme only about BSNs.

*** No, it appears to me that the DNP is at least partly about limiting access to the professions. I think certain people making money is partly behind the motivation behind requiring BSN as entry to practice. The evidence I see for that is the unwillingness to simply grandfather in all the diploma and ADNs and make BSN to new standard. I think that could be done very easily relative to requiring all RNs to have BSN.

I wonder why it is, that if the evidence shows a benefit to patients from having RNs with BSN degrees, the simplest and fastest path to the goal isn't being advocated for? One answer that seems probable to me is that grandfathering in all the ADNs and diploma RNs would deprive so many of all the money to be made if tens of thousands of them return to for profit online schools like U of P.

I think there is also confusion when people "assume" all programs use practice hours to meet the 1000 hours. Many programs have 1000 plus clinical hours with another 2-3 hundred practice hours. The intent of the DNP was to have 1000 clinical hours a "clinical doctorate"

I think you are discussing a MSN/FNP to a DNP versus a BSN to a DNP/FNP. In that case of a MSN/FNP to a DNP they have been in practice for several years, do they need clinical hours, I dont think so. They need practice hours

Specializes in Anesthesia.
I think there is also confusion when people "assume" all programs use practice hours to meet the 1000 hours. Many programs have 1000 plus clinical hours with another 2-3 hundred practice hours. The intent of the DNP was to have 1000 clinical hours a "clinical doctorate"

I think you are discussing a MSN/FNP to a DNP versus a BSN to a DNP/FNP. In that case of a MSN/FNP to a DNP they have been in practice for several years, do they need clinical hours, I dont think so. They need practice hours

Post-MSN students with at least 1000 clinical/practice hours done as a graduate student probably would not have to have more "practice hours", but that would be up to each program.

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/position/DNPEssentials.pdf

"Practice Experiences in the Curriculum

DNP programs provide rich and varied opportunities for practice experiences aimed athelping graduates achieve the essential and specialty competencies upon completion ofthe program. In order to achieve the DNP competencies, programs should provide aminimum of 1,000 hours of practice post-baccalaureate as part of a supervised academicprogram. Practice experiences should be designed to help students achieve specificlearning objectives related to the DNP Essentials and specialty competencies. Theseexperiences should be designed to provide systematic opportunities for feedback andreflection. Experiences include in-depth work with experts from nursing as well as otherdisciplines and provide opportunities for meaningful student engagement within practiceenvironments. Given the intense practice focus of DNP programs, practice experiencesare designed to help students build and assimilate knowledge for advanced specialtypractice at a high level of complexity. Therefore, end-of-program practice immersionexperiences should be required to provide an opportunity for further synthesis andexpansion of the learning developed to that point. These experiences also provide thecontext within which the final DNP product is completed.

Practice immersion experiences afford the opportunity to integrate and synthesize theessentials and specialty requirements necessary to demonstrate competency in an area of specialized nursing practice. Proficiency may be acquired through a variety of methods,such as, attaining case requirements, patient or practice contact hours, completingspecified procedures, demonstrating experiential competencies, or a combination of theseelements. Many specialty groups already extensively define various minimal experiencesand requirements. "

That doesn't consider the fact that MSN/APN programs are credit over loaded and need to move to a clinical doctorate based on credit hours alone.

I think the argument could be made that title of the degree aside any APN degree is a professional degree and not an academic/research degree and as such the number of credit hours do not have to align with other degrees of the same title. Nursing is not the only profession where the professional degree may require more credit hours than a strictly academic/research degree with the same title. Think MD versus PhD. Many PhD programs come nowhere close to the number of credit hours required for a professional doctorate. On the flip side, many, if not most, PhD recipients spend more years in school in pursuit of their doctorate than do those who receive a professional doctorate. So, with absolutely no disrespect meant, the number of credit hours really has no bearing on the title of a professional degree (along these same lines many ADN prepared nurses have almost another whole year of education above what would be considered an associates degree in other fields).

With all that said, I don't believe the DNP degree, as a professional doctorate, is a bad thing. Rather, I think in its role as a professional doctorate it needs to educate more on the professional side of practice and less on the academic/research for the sake of research side of things. EBP is a professional issue, so that is fine. Additional statistic classes, for example, for the sake of adding credit hours, is not so fine. Again this is my opinion, but this logic is followed through by most other professional doctorates (medical, health, or otherwise -- you don't see JD students having to retake a political science class on the way to getting their professional doctorate for instance).

+ Add a Comment