RESUMEN
School nurses who are considering a terminal degree in nursing have two options, a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) or a Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD). There are several factors for school nurses to consider when determining which terminal degree is best suited for them. This article focuses on the relevance of a DNP degree to school nursing, by first reviewing the evolution of DNP programs and then pivoting to discussions by three school nurses on why they chose this terminal degree and the projects completed during their courses of study. A main focus of a DNP project is to gather, analyze, synthesize, and translate research into practice, often operationalized as quality improvement (QI) in clinical settings. School nurses, practicing independently from other healthcare professionals while often managing large workloads, stand to benefit from obtaining or working with a nurse prepared at this level.
Asunto(s)
Educación de Postgrado en Enfermería , Servicios de Enfermería Escolar , Humanos , Mejoramiento de la CalidadRESUMEN
The past several years have seen explosive growth in the number of doctor of nursing practice (DNP) degree programs offered by colleges of nursing in the United States. Through a process of trial and error since 2005, the faculty at the University of Colorado, College of Nursing, have revised the course structure and procedures related to the DNP capstone project to improve the quality and usefulness of these student projects. Efforts have focused on educating and involving all nursing faculty in the DNP capstone process, distinguishing between competencies for our PhD and DNP projects, clearly aligning the DNP capstone project with quality improvement methods rather than with research, working with our campus institutional review board to clarify regulatory review requirements for quality improvement studies, developing a review committee to oversee DNP students' projects, and structuring our sequential course requirements to encourage students' professional presentations and publications. Our current capstone process reflects 7 years of iterative work, which we summarize in this article in hopes that it will help institutions currently in the process of developing a DNP program.