Nursing school to offer new degree in fall

By: Ben Miller

Monday, January 18, 2010 - 11:40 PM

The nursing school will offer a new two-year program, Doctor of Nursing Practice,. beginning in the fall semester. Students can choose either a clinic, or administrative track. Photo by Brian Bolton.

Beginning next year, a new nursing degree will be available to students in Nevada.

The degree, called the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree, will be offered beginning in the 2010 fall semester. The new program offers advanced nursing practice with specific focuses in leadership, management and policy-making for nurses.

“The goal is to prepare people who are practicing-level nurses in administrative and policy making skills, so they can go into better jobs,” Marc Johnson, the University of Nevada, Reno’s provost, said.

The degree, which is offered almost entirely online, is a collaborative effort between UNR and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Students accepted into the program will take classes from both schools. Students will be required to visit their “home campus” once a year to attend orientation and for DNP project purposes.

Johnson said a national movement that includes schools like Duke, Purdue and Johns Hopkins universities spurred the implementation of the degree. The proposal for the program stated that the extra education is important in meeting demand for the near future of medical practice.

“Advanced practice nurses prepared at the DNP level will be necessary to meet our changing and future health care demands,” read the programs proposal to the Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents, approved in December.

According to Johnson, two tracks will be offered in the program: one clinical and one administrative.

The two-year program will consist of 39 credits and offer graduation from both UNR and UNLV to all students enrolled.

One aspect of the program Johnson wished to stress was its classification.

“This is not a Ph.D degree,” Johnson said. “The degree is not going to make a nurse a more effective nurse practitioner. It’s going to make them more effective in group leadership and management.”

To be eligible, applicants must have at least a 3.5 grade point average, hold a Master of Science in Nursing degree and be a licensed Registered Nurse.

Both UNR and UNLV plan on admitting 14 students each into the program for the first semester.

Ben Miller can be reached at news@nevadasagebrush.com.