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Discussion

Practice Doctorate

I am a graduate nursing student writing an assignment regarding the nurse practice doctorate. I have researched many articles, older and newer ones, and found a jumble of titles being considered for this "newer" practice. I am told by my professor that NPD is the newest, hottest title for this practice, but I am not finding any articles, etc. Please comment to the issue of NPD versus DNSc, DNP, DrNP, ND, etc. Thank you

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I am a graduate nursing student writing an assignment regarding the nurse practice doctorate. I have researched many articles, older and newer ones, and found a jumble of titles being considered for this "newer" practice. I am told by my professor that NPD is the newest, hottest title for this practice, but I am not finding any articles, etc. Please comment to the issue of NPD versus DNSc, DNP, DrNP, ND, etc. Thank you

Welcome to our Forum, Eshau :balloons:

The "official" version is Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) - This is from the AACN web site (specifically from their official statement concerning these controversial proposals). They are the ones who came up with this idea, so I guess this gives them ownership.

  • Experts

I wish they would stop making up new titles. It's terribly confusing and I think it does the profession more harm than good. It's hard enough to get the public (and our colleagues) to realize that nurses have graduate educations without making up new titles every couple of weeks! Good luck with your paper.

llg .... PhD, RN ... but who works in a hospital. I LIKE my PhD because when people in other disciplines see those letters, they know what they mean.

All the info you need is right here:

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/DNP/pdf/DNP.pdf

The main problem with the Practice Doctorate in nursing is the absolute shortage of qualified faculty. This is an enormous problem, which must be "fixed" before the practice doctorate can ever become reality. In fact, just a few days ago, I was discussing this topic with the program director for the PhD in nursing department at my local university. The program director agreed that the practice doctorate will never become the standard in nursing due to the shortage of faculty. She stated she attended the last AACN convention and brought this question to the floor - "What about the faculty?" She stated that her concerns about the impracticality were not adequately addressed.

Faculty IS a major problem. It will take YEARS to build up adequate numbers of DNP's, let alone adequate numbers of faculty. I'm not so sure we shouldn't be focusing the efferts on faculty to train ADN and BSN nurses! That quandry has not been solved yet!

There are more universities working to open DNP programs around the country, that should help to make them more accessable for those who want to get that degree. Online and distance education is also becoming more accessable and this should help as well.

The programs that exist already (I believe there are 6 of them altogether - Case Western, U of Kentucky, U of Tennesee, Columbia and I think the other 2 are in California) all differ significantly in content and curriculum. While they have some common elements, they each have a different focus. Some focus more on the administrative side, others more on the actual clinical practice - even though they all confer the same degree. Those kinds of issues need to be resolved too.

  • Experts

I agree with the last couple of posts. There seems to be too much energy being expended on creating multiple new degrees. I'm fine with the idea of a practice doctorate. I can see the need for it. But when I see all these different degrees being created, I get frustrated with the leaders who are spending all the energy trying to sell their particular combination of letters as the "best" ... when they should be investing some of that energy on solving the highest priority problems staring us all right in the face.

Those leaders seem more interested in promoting themselves and their particular school than in solving our profession's problems. It's all about winning the competition for personal career advancement and prestige for their particular institution. They SHOULD be cooperating and collaborating with each other ... coming to a concensus on an approach to address our problems ... and working together to find solutions. Instead, they are competing with each other and wasting a lot of valuable resources.

I assume that part of the reason for this is that it is easier to grant money for a "new program" with a "new title" than it is to get money to improve existing programs. It's a shame.

I find it disheartening.

llg

And THAT my friend is exactly what is wrong with nursing as a profession in the US (and probably in other places too)...

The lack of a singular focus, a definate goal and a plan to GET there!

The DNP, DrNP, ND or anything else you care to call it doesn't solve this issue, it simply creates another level of fragmentation. Yes there is a need for it, but that need is not absolute. Instead of curing the world, we need to clean up our own rooms first so to speak.

Our highest priorities should be on educating new nurses, making sure we have both adequate and able staff to do that and on creating cohesiveness within the profession, not further division. We also need to clean up the profession and work together to resolve some of the abuses that occur in our profession.

We have enough division - ADN vs BSN, RN vs LVN, MS vs Cert, ANP vs CNS, MS vs MSN, - its time to start doing some multiplication!

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