What is a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice?

Jubilayhee · Jul 19, 2009

Boo, might as well become an anesthesiologist then.

keithjones · Jul 19, 2009

This is mostly to protect the position from to many people going into NP or CRNA. if you get to many people in these careers wages start to fall off drastically and higher paid experienced nurses get dumped for fresh graduates who will work for less! you want to keep the balance just on the side of shortage to keep pay, benefits, and working conditions up.

Jubilayhee · Jul 20, 2009

I think it is just a way to confuse people into thinking nurses are doctors, when really they aint. ANA cleary has an agenda and an inferiority complex. If you want to be called a doctor go to med school school plain and simple.

DNAP2b · Jul 20, 2009

Will DNAP's eventually fight for Anesthesiologist jobs??

stanman1968 · Jul 21, 2009

Clearly you have no understanding of the term Doctor, try again and tell all those who have earned the title Doctor in fields other then medicine that they are just trying to confuse the public.

loveanesthesia · Jul 22, 2009

Most of the current Master's programs in Nurse Anesthesia have a curriculum that is well beyond a Master's level education in any other field. AACN is the organization (see the original post) that has mandated Advanced Practice nursing move to the clinical doctorate, similar to what PT and Pharmacy has done in the recent past. It is a natural progression which has taken this long only because 'nursing' has been well aware that "you nurses just want to be doctors" would be shouted from the mountaintops far and wide. Well shout away. No MD should be threatened by this, it has nothing to do with them.

jwk · Jul 22, 2009

Clearly you have no understanding of the term Doctor, try again and tell all those who have earned the title Doctor in fields other then medicine that they are just trying to confuse the public.

Clearly you're fooling yourself.

Most of the current Master's programs in Nurse Anesthesia have a curriculum that is well beyond a Master's level education in any other field. AACN is the organization (see the original post) that has mandated Advanced Practice nursing move to the clinical doctorate, similar to what PT and Pharmacy has done in the recent past. It is a natural progression which has taken this long only because 'nursing' has been well aware that "you nurses just want to be doctors" would be shouted from the mountaintops far and wide. Well shout away. No MD should be threatened by this, it has nothing to do with them.

Compared to what? A masters in education that takes a year?

And as with Stan, you're clearly fooling yourself, or woefully uninformed.

stanman1968 · Jul 24, 2009

The average credit hours for BSN is 120 hours the average anesthesia program is 60 hours total 180 hours befor courswork for clinical doctorate, the Pharm D is a TOTAL 190 hours, So JWK those PHARM D's earned thier doctorate and CRNA's will not?

You are tragically misinformed. Just try not to regurgitate the misinformation the ASA feeds you, I know it hard but try.

allnurses Guide · Jul 25, 2009

Clearly you're fooling yourself.
Compared to what? A masters in education that takes a year?
And as with Stan, you're clearly fooling yourself, or woefully uninformed.

Let's see I will graduate with 81 semester credit hours for my Master's degree in nurse anesthesia. The one PharmD program I looked at will have 80 semester graduate hours when they graduate, but it is okay for pharmacists to get their doctorate and not CRNAs?...

Not to mention the fact that most programs are going to add 6-12months to their existing programs in order to graduate with a DNAP.

Now JWK, since you seem to be the spokesman for the ASA, can you tell me why it is okay for pharmacists and physical/occupational/speech therapists to get their doctorates, but as soon as nurses move to a terminal doctorate degree it becomes confusing and nurses are suddenly trying to become physicians. I think that it is you that is confused.

loveanesthesia · Jul 25, 2009

Clearly you're fooling yourself.

Compared to what? A masters in education that takes a year?

That's one example, I just took a quick look at Columbia's wesite. Their MBA program requires 18 months of full-time study over 21 months (2 academic years with the summer off). A Master in Biotechnology can be done in a 1 year intensive program, meaning it's a full 12 months, you don't get the summer off. I had to look at the Master's in Philosophical Foundations of Physics (I've never heard of such a degree). It's 2 full time semester's and then you must write a thesis, it actually sounds really interesting-I must be getting older. The Columbia Nurse Anesthesia program in contrast is 27 months of full time study with no breaks.

I can understand the AA reaction to the DNP or DNAP, you have a reason to feel threatened.

mige · Aug 19, 2009

The DNP is another glorify easy degree, its purpose was to make/prepare better clinical nurses but if you look at the curriculum of almost all DNP programs you wont find more than 2 classes that involve clinical medicine.

Its funny that the Purdue DNP program states 192 hours of residency, As a 3rd year resident IM I do that in less than 3 weeks working 80 hours per week.

Its a joke and that's why even the nurse community can find a common ground on this topic.