UCDHSC to Offer Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree

from Caring For Our Future, Summer 2005

The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center will offer a new graduate program in nursing, the Doctor of Nursing Practice, beginning in fall 2005. The University of Colorado Board of Regents approved a change in the 15-year-old Doctor of Nursing (ND) program at UCDHSC School of Nursing in February.

The approved change will convert the ND to a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. This change was precipitated by recent recommendations from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing to standardize the preparation and degree title for professional practice doctorates in nursing across the United States.

The UCDHSC School of Nursing is the first in the Rocky Mountain region to initiate the DNP. The school is well-known for having the first Nurse Practitioner program in the United States . Its nurse practitioner specialties consistently rank in the Top 10 by U.S. News & World Report.

“In 1990 we were innovators, one of the first in the nation to offer a professional doctorate in nursing,” said Lauren Clark, RN, PhD, FAAN, director of the DNP program. “Today, we’re using this experience as we convert to the DNP degree. While it is different from the ND, in some ways there are similarities.”

Dramatic changes in healthcare in recent years have increased demands for nurses to assume leadership roles in the delivery of complex clinical care. Studies on the education of health professionals, patient safety, and the nursing and faculty shortage also have contributed to the national call for practice-focused doctoral degrees in nursing. Nurses with this degree will help alleviate the shortage of nursing faculty in the United States .

The DNP degree will appeal to nurses with an MS or a BS degree in nursing who are interested in a practice-focused doctorate, as well as graduates from other fields who want to become nurses and continue into graduate study.

DNP graduates will build on nursing specialty practice and will be prepared as leaders who will design models of healthcare delivery, evaluate clinical outcomes, identify and manage healthcare needs of populations, and use technology and information to transform healthcare systems.

The current ND program is a generalist nursing degree, similar to the MD for physicians and the DDS for dentists. The new DNP program will provide a seamless transition for nurses wanting to specialize because requirements for the MS degree will be completed as part of the DNP program. The new DNP program will include all of the nursing specialties offered at UCDHSC School of Nursing.

“This is an exciting change because previously, ND graduates who wanted to specialize in a particular area of nursing had to obtain a second degree at the master’s level,” said Patricia Moritz, RN, PhD, FAAN, dean of the UCDHSC School of Nursing. The school currently offers specialty areas to prepare nurse practitioners and specialists in the primary care of children, families and adults; nurse midwifery, critical and palliative care and community/public health. The first DNP students will be admitted in fall 2005.

“We hope to attract MS-prepared advanced-practice nurses who want to expand their education as well as BS graduates who want to pursue a specialty with preparation at a doctoral level,” said Marlaine Smith, RN, PhD, FAAN, associate dean for Academic Affairs. “And we’ll continue to recruit people from other fields.”