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Advanced Practice Nursing and the 2015 DNP

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• Currently active practicing advanced practice nurses (NP & Nurse Mid-wives mostly) can continue to practice, but they too must enroll in a ‘bridge MSN-DNP program’ with the same specific standards as the new MSN graduate. Once again I do not know the time frame allotted for completion.

• This process is not immediate. The transition is being displaced over a number of years. This transition also addresses current MSN students as well as currently practicing Advance Practice Nurses (NP, Nurse Mid-Wives, etc.)

• The DNP program is a concentration in nursing clinical practice and will require a great deal more clinical time, education, training, and skill. This of course will include rigorous efficiency in evidenced based research.

• The ‘requirement’ to possess the DNP has not been set in stone (or on paper) as of yet. All of these changes are with the intent and assumption that it will be by 2015.

• While the DNP is of course more intense and has many more hours required, the total time in a specific program is only lengthened from generally a 2.5 year program to a 3.5 year program (this is just a loose estimate).

This of course is not an all inclusive list. I don’t have expert knowledge on the inner workings of the framework. What I can tell you is this is happening whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not. I used to tell myself this DNP requirement was like the rumor about all RN’s will be required to have their BSN. That all hospital-based degree programs and all ADN programs were disappearing.

Unfortunately we are talking about advanced nursing practice, not basic nursing skills 101.

The truth of the matter is, and the evidence supports this : the higher the education level the safer the level of patient care. Sorry folks, for some that is a hard pill to swallow. Whether it be an advanced certification or the advanced degree, possessing more knowledge benefits our patients.

And honestly, isn’t that all that really matters?

Additional resource:

Position Statement on the Practice Doctorate in Nursing

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