VCU's combined MSNA/DNAP program

[Jaelle625]

Hi all!

I've recently been looking into VCU's combined MSNA/DNAP program and have a few questions for anyone who may know.

I'm curious as to how much additional study time these students had to allot for the extra courses each semester. Clearly, it's doable or the program wouldn't be in existence, but I wondered if in hindsight the students wished they would have gone the more traditional route and separated the two degrees? I see that the combined program replaces a semester of clinical with one of the dnap courses as well.. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any input!

[OrlandoFLNurse2b]

It's difficult to specify how much additional time is required by adding the practice doctorate while still pursuing the MSNA. It ebbs and flows based upon workload e.g., are discussion posts due or is a 10-20 page paper due? Ultimately, it's manageable.

Regarding the clinical component, there is no semester replaced with a DNAP class. Still required to meet and hopefully, exceed minimum requirements for cases, surgery types, etc. If it appears that way on some website then it’s probably just a way classes are coded with the school registrar. We started in the clinical arena our second semester and didn’t stop until graduation six semesters later.

Good luck with applications.