Doctoral degree to become an NP???

Specialties Doctoral

Published

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) is calling for the requirement of doctorate in nursing for advanced practice nurses, such as nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, clinical nurse specialists, and nurse anesthetists. This new degree will be called a Doctor of Nursing Practice and, if the AACN has its way, will become the entry level for advanced nursing practice.

AACN Position Statement on the Practice Doctorate in Nursing

Laur,

Please remember that NPs are already RN's with a pretty intense education: Here is my "real" mid-level education:

Pre-reqs for undergraduate nursing school:

General Biology I w/lab

General Chemistry I w/lab

Biochemistry w/ lab

Anatomy and Physiology I w/ lab

Anatomy and Physiology II w/lab

Microbiology w/lab

Sociology

Psychology

Human development (psychology)

Undergraduate math courses

Nursing undergrad:

Basic pharmacology

Nursing courses--36 credits w/ labs and clinicals; patho/ assessments/ interventions, including OR, Pacu, med-surg, OB, peds, ED, cardiac, respiratory, long term care/rehab, psych, ect...

Nursing bachelors:

Research/ statistics

Physical assessment and patho

Community nursing

Information Technology

Self directed seminar/practicum in area of interest

Nutrition

Graduate:

Advanced pathophysiology

Advanced pharmacology

Advanced health assessment w/ 150 hrs clinical

Advanced statistics/Biostatistics

Family nursing- w/ 90 hrs clinical

Quantitative research

Qualitative research

Epidemiology

Issues in healthcare

Adult acute management w/ 180 hrs clinical

Women's management w/ 90 hrs clinical

Peds management w/ 90 hrs clinical

I'm not quite sure what the point of your post is. I hope you can clarify.

Thanks

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PA students also take anatomy, physiology, chemistry, biology, organic chemistry, microbiology, and genetics in undergrad. The courses taken at the grad school level go way above and beyond. I didn't include undergrad curriculum in my model so it isn't fair to include it in yours. Plus, undergraduate students wishing to pursue the PA route take more science than nursing students do.

And don't put biochemistry in your post like you took real biochemistry. I'm pretty sure your nursing program didn't require you to take a year of general chemistry and organic chemistry and then take the biochemistry that typically follows that.

I'm not anti NP. I am anti DNP being required and I am anti the NPs who think they are equivalent to MDs.

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Forevr Laur,

I was trying to say that PAs and NPs end up with (not identical) but comparable education. And please don't say that I didn't take biochem.. you really have no idea what I have or haven't taken. I am looking for a meaningful discussion.

And while some PA program require Masters degrees, some don't or didn't used to. So to not include "undergrad" is just a weird statement. While your science courses go above and beyond as you say, so do nursing... have you looked at the course descriptions of nursing courses? Many of my classes in my NP were taught by the same physician/Pharm D/ phds that taught the identical courses in the PA programs. I included the pre-req undergrad courses that were used to get into my nursing program, after having a Life-Science degree.

So please, don't hate... discuss.

I'm anti NPs that think it's equivalent to physicians also. However, I think it's unfortunate that people tend (and maybe not you) to equate having a DNP to being independent in practice. I am pro- doctoral degrees... I think DNPs could change policies in favor of better healthcare at the system level. I don't necessarily think that DNPs should be completely independent across that board just because they have a doctoral degree. Honestly, I don't think that I think that NPs should be independent completely at all.

But these questions I have is why I come to this nursing discussion board.

Thanks.

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Forever Laur,

This is a local PA program that I am familiar with (a family member was applying to this program). http://www.umes.edu/PA/Content.aspx?id=2428 Just an FYI of where I got some of my PA program information from. THis particular program is not a Masters program.

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The vast majority of PA programs are master's degrees and in my state, a master's is required. However, the lack of a master's doesn't make it a worse off program.

Is a bachelors degree prepared RN a better nurse than a ADN or diploma prepared nurse simply because of the degree?

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There is a lot of talk in the nursing community to discontinue ADN programs; the diploma programs are all but gone; and make the BSN the entry degree for nursing. Better nurses? hard to say. Better educated? maybe--? For instance, the ADN programs do not delve into research and statistics, for example. But really that's another discussion thread completely.

I do not know much about state requirements for the PAs being masters vs bachelors. It's just that one of the programs that I am familiar with happens to be bachelors-- i'm not sure if you thought I was trying to make a point by mentioning the bachelors program?

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I have a BA in Psychology and will have an ADN. I don't think that will make me less of a nurse. I've taken more than my fair share of research and statistics courses. I also focused my degree in health psychology and neuroscience so I took a lot of health related stats and research courses.

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Specializes in Emergency, Cardiac, PAT/SPU, Urgent Care.

OK. Below are the prereqs required for the number one PA school in the nation according to their Web site.

Here are the "hard" sciences for the pre-professional phase for the students who get accepted into their program right out of high school:

- General Biology

- A&P I&II

- Chemistry I&II

- Microbiology

After those, they move onto the professional phase and none of those sciences (at this school) are continued at the grad level. I don't see any difference at all from what I took at the BSN level (which this would be equivalent to). Also, I took those same science courses with the pre-med students at my school who were accepted into the 7-year accelerated med school program where after 3 years of undergrad, they went directly into one of the med schools in the state. So essentially, you are stating that those same students who have all been doctors for several years now didn't take "real" science courses, either, but yet the med schools accepted them. Huh.

Like I have mentioned before in other threads, I am not a big supporter of the DNP, because I think the MSN-NPs are doing just fine. I also have not met one NP, ever, who has felt that they are the equivalent of a doctor. I welcome collaboration and am thankful to work with docs who are very supportive of my profession.

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That's great for you foreverlaur. I did not say that ADN nurses were "poor nurses". I was at one time an ADN nurse. I believe they have great patient care. I also believe that the more education you can have, the better you can be-- that's just my personal motto. If you have a specific question regrading what I think is different about ADN and BSNs then I will be happy to try and answer... as to the research classes: Evidence based practice is the key to the BSN research classes. Whether or not that's included in the psychology degree, I do not know.

I just checked your info... I really thought (b/c of your earlier posts in this thread) that you were a PA.

Best of luck to you.

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Specializes in Emergency, Cardiac, PAT/SPU, Urgent Care.

What I just don't get is why it seems there always has to be this bashing of NPs and their education on a strictly NURSING Web site. Actually, I am quite surprised since you (as a nurse) should know that we embrace our profession and pride ourselves on being an embowered bunch who have come a very long way since we first came to be many years ago; we don't typically bash each other for wanting to become NPs. I honestly don't know what your motive is to continually try to state (in an NP forum) that the PA model of mid-level preparation is superior. If you believe that the PA educational model is that much better - great! You have answered your own question, then, as to where you should continue your studies beyond the RN level.

We get it. You don't like the DNP idea. Neither do a lot of us, but I'm not going to slam someone else's education and continually try to state it is inferior to another separate profession's education just because I don't necessarily agree with it. You truly are barking up the wrong tree when you post your inflammatory statements in this forum.

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Specializes in Emergency, Cardiac, PAT/SPU, Urgent Care.

Yes, and I realize I spelled "empowered" as "embowered" - my apologies.

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

This is NOT a discussion about PA and NP. Nor is it a discussion about the ADN/BSN debate.

Further posts in this vein will be deleted.

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