Reply With QuoteThis is good news for those searching for a DNP program.
FYI: http://www.cleveland.com/sun/all/ind...e_college.html
Ursuline College, long known for its nursing program, is taking that program to a higher level.
The college announced that it is, beginning with the fall semester in September, instituting a nursing doctorate program.
It will be the first doctorate program offered at the school, which began teaching nursing in 1975 when it absorbed the Saint John College of Cleveland nursing program.
The holder of a PhD and a registered nurse, Christine Wynd, who is Ursuline’s dean of nursing, said the college has been readying the program for three years. For the program’s start, Wynd said only those possessing master’s degrees in nursing will be accepted.
“(The program is) important because nursing, heading into the future, is going to need higher educated nurses,” said Wynd, a nurse of 36 years. “Higher educated nurses produce better outcomes for patients.”
Wynd said that there have been PhD programs for nurses at Ohio colleges and universities in recent years, but that those programs featured curricula that led its graduates to furthering their careers in the areas of medical research and teaching.
The new Ursuline program is known as a DNP, or a doctoral degree in nursing practice.
The DNP, Wynd said, “move nurses into the realm of decision- and policy-making and allows them to influence health care quality.”
The DNP is a professional degree program focusing on the development of nurse leaders.
“We want advanced nursing practitioners in the program,” Wynd said.
Advanced nursing practitioners typically work in hospitals relating new information and techniques to groups of nurses working directly with patients, and in primary care in clinics.
Wynd said that the American Association of Colleges of Nursing issued a goal in which it wants all advanced nursing practitioners to have a DNP by 2015, although she is unsure whether that goal will be met.
According to a U.S. government study, by 2020, the nation will face a nursing shortage of up to one million.
In a region where medical care is the top industry and a career in healthcare is a good bet against a difficult economy, Wynd said more nurses are still needed.
Even though students might be interested in the profession, Wynd said, “We (the nation’s educational facilities) don’t have enough nursing faculty, so qualified students are put on a waiting list.”
Still, she said, “We have to have people in the advanced level and that would be the DNP Ursuline is offering.”
The Breen School of Nursing at Ursuline College is one of the few colleges providing a DNP. In Cleveland, there is only Case Western Reserve University.
Others with such a program include Ohio State, Walsh College and the University of Toledo and Wright State University working in tandem, and the University of Akron and Kent State University working together.
Wynd said Ursuline has 15-20 students interested in taking part in the DNP program this fall.
A DNP introductory event will be held at Ursuline at 6 p.m. July 14. For more information on this event, call (440) 449-4203, or go to the college’s Website, ursuline.edu.
Contact Piorkowski at (216) 986-5862, or at jpiorkowski@sunnews.com.
This is good news for those searching for a DNP program.
I had found a few programs menioned over the past few, and figured, 'Why not add them?'
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