Nurse Doctorate degree

bergren · May 18, 2003

An earlier post asked for names of schools offering doctoral programs:

The AACN website lists contact information for all nursing doctoral programs accredited through the American Association of Colleges for Nursing

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Education/doctoral.htm

This link provides infomation about Nurisng doctoral programs internationally:

http://www.umich.edu/~inden/programs/

The following website is not a complete list of schools, but

the links are embedded and it allows for sotring programs for accelerated BSN, drect entry MSN etc. .

http://www.allnursingschools.com/featured/allphd.php

debmsn01 · May 22, 2003

I guess I am confused. I began my nursing career as an LPN, than ADN-BSN & MSN. Lots of school, but it still doesn't always apply since I chose the CNS vs the NP route thinking I would prefer more disease management/teaching than physicals. I now teach nursing at the ADN level & I view the "practice" of nursing imperative to the foundation of an Advanced Practice degree. I don't think you can just intuitively "know" or grasp the concept of nursing without those very important first years. I felt I truly became a competant nurse maybe 5 years into the profession when everything suddenly comes together. I tell my students not to expect to know everything right away, it comes with EXPERIENCE!!! An advanced degree doesn't make the nurse-the experience does. Good luck with your choice & seek mentoring from nurses with knowledge, experience & application of both.

bergren · May 22, 2003

This is somewhat on the topic and it just came in this morning's email.

Marion, L., Viens, D., O'Sullivan, A. N., Crabtree, K., Fontana, F., Price, M. M. (2003). The Practice Doctorate in Nursing: Future or Fringe? Topics in Advanced Practice Nursing eJournal.

"The prestigious doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree is devoted to research, and nurses with PhDs form an elite core with distinguished research achievements. They have received funding from the National Institutes of Health and other sponsors to build the discipline's knowledge base. ... The doctorates of nursing science (DNS/DNSc/DSN) and education (EdD) may have

been intended to meet the need for advanced clinical practice and education, but a review of these programs reveals little difference between these and the research-intensive PhD programs.[1,2]"

For the complete article:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/453247?mpid=13759

References

McEwen M, Bechtel GA. (2000). Characteristics of nursing doctoral programs in the United States. J Prof Nursing, 16:282-292.

Edwardson SR. (2001). Re-envisioning doctoral programs in nursing. Program and abstracts of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing 2001 Doctoral Education Conference; Sanibel Island, Florida.

pieWACKet · May 22, 2003

More power to you on getting a ND now, while the opportunity is yours. But I have a very contrarian view for the people who generated this opportunity for you.

I can't help but feel that these alternate methods to higher degrees in nursing, rather than building on the BSN, further the very accurate perception that both nursing and nursing education are in disarray, and I feel that the bedside nurse is shafted in the process.

You have a biology degree, it interfaces more logically in terms of core curriculum in the first two years of the standard BSN program, but it does not do so in entirity.

Here's my take.

If it is not necessary to have four years dedicated education for the BSN , then why is there a BSN at all? And as I work with MANY very competant, even stellar ADN nurses, and Diploma nurses, whose practice in no way is inferior to my own, with my BSN, i have often wondered this despite what I was told in my BSN program. The answer i was given in nursing school was that the RN/ BSN was "the future", that the ADN and Diploma programs "had no future" and that the BSN allowed a rise in management and/or to nursing education that the other two lacked. But your jump to the ND proves that that was not the truth, and I , like many, many other RNs was led astray by a confused academia that remains confused and in disarray.

My sister in law was an art history major who, at the same time i was in a four year dedicated BSN program, was able in TWO years total to sit for both the NCLEX and for her NP boards. How can this be? How can it be that in two years she learned what it would take me 9 [4 for the BSN, 3 for the masters, two for the clinical full time work required to apply for the masters]-, just because she had a degree in art history? If in fact a person can become an NP in two years on top of an art history education AND become an RN/ BSN then it is obvious they will never be a Staff RN, they will move immediately to NP. This parcelling out of higher degrees serendipitously based on a degree in the cultures of the south african Vale, or the art of western Europe or whatever, is so terribly misguided and alienating. AND , if she can, and did, take both boards succesfully, then WHY is the usual process so darn long? Obviously, to succeed at sitting for that exam, the amount of time usually entailed is called into question, formenting distrust in an educational machine that is expensive either to the student, or the society in general [through grants, etc].

In addition, having been once in an NP program and leaving it, I think such leap frogging over the logical degree building to advanced degrees purported with the "BSN as first tier" mentality I was exposed to in the 80s in nursing school,such leapfrogging only further separates the Bedside RN from nursing leadership, , and this at a time when we need more and more of our bedside nurses in positions of voice. Already the mantra in NP schools is "you aren't just a nurse anymore..you're an NP now" often stated the first day of class and repeated frequently in NP programs [i have lots of NP friends and family...this is indeed the case]. Bull. Nurses had the vision to create the NP niche, and without "Just us nurses" creating that role, NO NP would be practicing today. On the first day of class they should gratefully say "back in the early 70s some very forward nurses had a vision. Nurses are often not recognized for vision, and the reason for the success of the vision from incipiency is something we will be discussing in the future. Today, and everyday, all you must understand is that that vision brought you here and it is the staff nurse with whom you will work as NP in the future who generated this degree through extraorinary vision and creativity. You will be an NP now. But NEVER forget you are a nurse first. Never forget the Nurse in the title Nurse Practitioner, and be proud of the visionary, and often revolutionary, history of the Nurse"

That was one of the reasons i was immediately turned off by the NP program...it seemed to me nursing education was just furthering the "just a nurse" mentality that staff RNs deal with on a multitude of levels all the time, in, and outside of, work, and it again caused me to believe that the education machine had gotten out of hand, and was inadvertantly severing a sacred trust.

Who teaches in law schools? lawyers. Not PHD JDs. Who teaches in Medical schools? MDs. Not necessarily, although some are, PHD MDs. Who teaches in nursing schools?, not practicing nurses, not by the time they teach......they are nurses [or at least one HOPES they were nurses...but in your case that would not be true] who had to dedicate years to the PHD and in the process alienated themselves from the very population they then take position to lead.

what does it say about the true requirement of education to prepare someone to sit for the NP board that it could be done in two years and concommitantly to the BSN? What it says is that there is a disparity between how much education is actually required and how much education the educational system SAYS is required to succesfully sit either board.

That someone can get a doctorate in nursing and NOT have to do the clinical required of a BSN before sitting that exam, and NOT have to work as a full time RN, means that that particular PHd belongs to someone who can not POSSIBLY represent true nursing voice, but only parrot what nursing education states ....as the bedside RN job itself is never managed, mastered, or fully understood by the nursing leadership generated in this way. Just as the NP who was able to sit both boards at once in two years and never be a staff RN never learned to admire her RN peer at the next bedside, or her own incredible internal RN resources in a most demanding role, this leap frogging furthers the lack of voice in clinically advancing ladders that truly can support the nurse who she takes position to lead.

It is the fault of nursing education, which has, in my opinion, fully integrated all the confusion regarding our jobs and furthered that confusion in so doing.Rather than generating PHDs in this fashion to fill the vacuum of nursing school professorships [which is only a suspicion on my part for such a leap frogging plan be put in place] , nursing academicians would be well served by considering that many nursing courses could be very well taught by practising bedside nurses....following the role model of other professions that recognize without prejudice that it is the bedside pracitioner who must be courted, and cultivated to this role in education.