The Doctor of Nursing Practice — the highest
degree for nurses committed to clinical practice —
is the latest academic program to be added to the array of
Johns Hopkins School of
Nursing
educational options. Pending approval by the Maryland
Higher Education Commission, the first DNP
class will launch in January 2008, with subsequent classes
beginning each year in September.
The structure of the new program is designed to
accommodate the needs of practicing nurses —
those who currently are nurse administrators, public health
practitioners or advanced-practice nurses
caring for individuals — and who come to the program
already having earned a master's degree. With
the nursing shortage in mind, the School of Nursing task
force that designed the program worked to
create an educational opportunity amenable to nurses who
work full time so they can enhance their
expertise while retaining their health care, retirement and
tuition benefits.
The innovative curriculum of 38 credits can be
completed in four semesters, through both
distance learning and executive-style immersion learning
opportunities, including weeklong seminars.
Key elements of the Johns Hopkins program are a mentoring
component that will match students with
Nursing faculty who share their areas of interest, and an
interdisciplinary faculty drawn from the
schools of Medicine, Public Health and Business as well as
Nursing.
An additional feature of the program that should be
attractive to the working nurse is the
tuition: $9,500 per semester. The rate will be within the
ranges of employer tuition reimbursement or
can be offset by financial aid programs aimed at reducing
the nursing shortage.
Like the PhD program that prepares nurse scientists to
head interdisciplinary research teams,
the DNP will prepare nurse leaders for multidisciplinary
practice initiatives, including those focusing
on patient safety, quality of care and performance
improvement. By 2015, the DNP degree will be the
level of educational preparation required by the American
Association of Colleges of Nursing for all
advanced-practice nurses.
Kathleen White, interim director of the new program,
says she looks forward to the impact the
new DNP graduates will have on the health care system.
"These new clinical leaders will be prepared to
practice at the highest level of nursing," she said. "They
will integrate nursing science with ethics and
the biophysical, psychosocial, analytical, organizational
and public health sciences. And they will be
among the vanguard of those solving the nursing
shortage."
More information concerning the program can be found
at
www.son.jhmi.edu/DNP; prospective
candidates are also invited to contact White at
410-6147-4664 or the Admissions Office at 410-955-7548. The
deadline for application to the cohort beginning January
2008 is Oct. 15.
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