Standardization of NP Education

Specialties NP

Published

  1. What immediate requirement will improve NP education

    • 37
      More clinical experience
    • 21
      2 years minimum admission requirement
    • 41
      Science and medicine based curriculum
    • 13
      Upgrade the DNP curriculum
    • 3
      Other

57 members have participated

Hello All,

I'm probably going to get alot of backlash from this but what can I say. I live life on the edge. These are my thoughts on the subject.

Firstly, as I browse on Allnurses occasionally, I see alot of hate towards NPs with no bedside experience. Despite being a nurse and a NP as completely different roles, several reviewers see this experience as mandatory. I can see how one can say that nursing experience can help you anticipate what to order and certain conditions but it's not an all-in-all experience to fall back on. Furthermore PAs, MDs, DO, hell even other allied health jobs don't absolutely require bedside care in order to be accepted into these programs so why be in a tizzy about NP school. I feel like is a personal matter. This notion also confirms that nurses dont even agree with the preparation that current NP schools provided.

With that being said, this requirement is at the discretion at the school but I wish there was just a straight-black-and-white standard of admission requirements so this argument can dissolve.

Secondly, even some brick-and-mortar NP schools have students find their own preceptor which is ludicrous and insulting. I'm paying money for experience that I have to seek out myself ... does not make sense. I can't name any other healthcare profession that does this. I'm sure someone will rebutle this but that's a 1%. NP schools should supply their own preceptors despite being online or on campus.

Thirdly, raising the minimum clinical hours from a mere 500 to 1000+ will add more respect to clinical aspect of NP schooling and also give the student adequate time of exposure to practice in their the new role.

NP/DNP curriculum needs dramatic reforming. The 3 P's are great. But what else can we add gross anatomy? Cadavers? I want to know what you guys think on this subject matter.

I have also seen hundreds of posts on how the DNP has no clinical significance to the profession. Disclaimer *I do not have my DNP* but I will say is after looking at numerous MSN-DNP programs all the classes are just repeat masters graduate classes with varying names per campuses. I understand the doctorate is a scholarly degree but even the clinical doctorate has a bunch of "fluff". I really appreciate the new PA doctorate curriculum as it is definitely focused on scholarly aspects of improving speciality. So my question to DNP students and graduates, what would you change about the DNP program?

What will become of NP education and what are nurse educators and NPs going to do to advocate for these changes? I'd love to hear reccomendations.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Maybe the public thinks that having access to quality care with providers they trust is more important than the number of years spent in a classroom?

Well 45% of them anyway per the referenced study. :)

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Specializes in Psychiatric and Mental Health NP (PMHNP).
I agree and in my view things have changed in the last 10 years with regard to the number of programs and lack of admissions criteria. Although I was underwhelmed by my well respected, high ranking state university at least there were stringent admission requirements. Only a few of the countless DNP programs I looked at required a GRE. Sad.

The reason many schools have dropped the GRE requirement is studies have shown the GRE is a poor predictor of success. These tests are also expensive, and students have to pay to study for them, too. No big loss. I did take the GRE and did not see how it would be relevant to nursing.

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Specializes in Psychiatric and Mental Health NP (PMHNP).
How many credits would you estimate between your BSN, and MSN on the "bare minimum required" nursing fluff? I bet there at least 12 that could have been better spent on valuable topics such as ortho, derm, musculoskeletal etc. As someone who did BSN, master's, post master's and doctorate the time and money spent on these tired regurgitated nursing focused courses makes me more than a little bitter.

I totally agree about NP residences.

I'm glad we agree on NP residencies. :)

The only course I considered fluff in my NP program was one course that combined Ethics and Nursing Theory. The Ethics part was fine and I think all providers need this. However, the nursing theory part was complete crap. The school combined the 2 into one course for that reason. They couldn't eliminate it because it was an accreditation requirement. All my other courses were clinically oriented, with the exception of Statistics and a course on Research. But I think those 2 classes are necessary for graduate level health care education and in the Research class we got to pick a topic we were interested in, so that was well worth it. Plus, there are NPs who want to be published and go on for the doctorates and/or academic careers.

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Specializes in Psychiatric and Mental Health NP (PMHNP).
How are residencies going to help? Honest question. What does a residency offer?

More collaboration?

More clinical hours of instruction or broader clinical experiences?

A holding pattern to decrease supply and increase demand?

What are the costs associated with them?

But you are for adding residency requirements which would significantly impact the cost effectiveness of NPs? Would you be willing to do the same job for a quarter pay for a few years?

Posters making the PA comparison really are just doing it out of ignorance of the process and model.

How do you propose we "get" more high quality NP schools? Do you think that the more you increase accommodation the more you sacrifice quality?

I agree that funding for NP residencies is an issue and I don't have an answer to that. A one year NP residency program for a reduced salary is reasonable and it is very competitive to get into the few programs that exist. I see no evidence that accommodating working adults decreases quality. As I previously stated, individuals that are willing to do that generally have a high degree of motivation.

As for PAs versus NPs, the MDs I know don't feel there is a big difference. They agree PAs have better procedures training, but most don't have a strong preference, at least in primary care.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
I'm glad we agree on NP residencies. :)

The only course I considered fluff in my NP program was one course that combined Ethics and Nursing Theory. The Ethics part was fine and I think all providers need this. However, the nursing theory part was complete crap. The school combined the 2 into one course for that reason. They couldn't eliminate it because it was an accreditation requirement. All my other courses were clinically oriented, with the exception of Statistics and a course on Research. But I think those 2 classes are necessary for graduate level health care education and in the Research class we got to pick a topic we were interested in, so that was well worth it. Plus, there are NPs who want to be published and go on for the doctorates and/or academic careers.

The research and statistics wouldn't have bothered me if I didn't have them for my BSN, MSN and DNP. Great idea to combine theory and ethics. I agree the ethics component is important but damn an entire course or 1/2 course? Overkill.

What was this? It sounds a little fluffy to me :)

NR.110.504 Context of Healthcare for Advanced Practice Nursing (3 credits)

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
The reason many schools have dropped the GRE requirement is studies have shown the GRE is a poor predictor of success. These tests are also expensive, and students have to pay to study for them, too. No big loss. I did take the GRE and did not see how it would be relevant to nursing.

GRE is a weed out. I'm not sure what the determination of "success" is, if its passing the insultingly easy boards I'm not impressed. The time and money don't phase me, why wouldn't it be expected that those who are attempting to move into the masters or doctorate realm have budgeted and spent a few dollars and the time on the hoops that serve to ensure those who are truly motivated and bright enough to score appropriately are given the spots in programs?...before there were a million programs I guess.

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Specializes in Psychiatric and Mental Health NP (PMHNP).
The research and statistics wouldn't have bothered me if I didn't have them for my BSN, MSN and DNP. Great idea to combine theory and ethics. I agree the ethics component is important but damn an entire course or 1/2 course? Overkill.

What was this? It sounds a little fluffy to me :)

NR.110.504 Context of Healthcare for Advanced Practice Nursing (3 credits)

Well, I went from BSN to MSN, and we did not have statistics in our BSN program, because it was a prereq for the BSN. The BSN research class focused on being able to read, understand, and critique research articles, not on writing a paper. The MSN research class was focused on writing a scholarly paper suitable for publication. The MSN statistics class was focused on the statistics encountered and used to read and write clinical research papers.

As for Context of Healthcare, that was an important course IMHO. It covered the basic healthcare delivery models in the USA, legal issues including malpractice, the role of the NP versus other providers like CNL, CNS, etc., healthcare accreditation and quality, healthcare IT and data analytics, policy development and advocacy, etc.

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Specializes in Psychiatric and Mental Health NP (PMHNP).
GRE is a weed out. I'm not sure what the determination of "success" is, if its passing the insultingly easy boards I'm not impressed. The time and money don't phase me, why wouldn't it be expected that those who are attempting to move into the masters or doctorate realm have budgeted and spent a few dollars and the time on the hoops that serve to ensure those who are truly motivated and bright enough to score appropriately are given the spots in programs?...before there were a million programs I guess.

All the GRE tests is how well one can do on the GRE. That is why more and more graduate schools are dropping the GRE - it is not relevant to many graduate school specialities. Stanford has dropped it and they are hardly a crappy school.

Stanford adjusts GRE requirement

According the AAAS, the GRE does not correlate with graduate school performance or with future productivity and accomplishments:

GREs don't predict grad school success. What does? | Science | AAAS

Many studies in the past 20 years have found the GRE does not predict graduate school success or professional career performance or success. That is why fewer and fewer grad schools require it, including the most elite schools.

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