The impending shortage of students entering school for a nursing degree has caused a demand for nurses that continues to spread across the U.S. healthcare system. Many providers of classroom-based and online education are developing programs that can help professionals in the field earn advanced degrees without sacrificing their career development.
The University of Nevada system has announced a partnership between two of its schools to offer a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, the Las Vegas Sun reports. System branches in Reno (UNR) and Las Vegas (UNLV) will each provide faculty members who will teach courses in the 39-credit program, which is intended to prepare nursing students for administrative positions.
While enrollees will be required to travel to UNR's Orvis School of Nursing once per year to participate in orientations and projects, coursework and lectures will be offered in an online format. Marc Johnson, UNR's provost, told the media outlet that the program aims to help students obtain leadership positions at hospitals, as well as in public health clinics and companies.
A similar program has been launched at Wilkes University, where school officials have announced they will begin offering a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree this year. The program, which will begin this summer, will be available online to accommodate the schedules of busy nursing professionals. Degree candidates will also be required to complete a weeklong residency.
After the launch of the new degree, Wilkes will be among the 15 percent of nursing education programs in U.S. that offer this certification. This has the potential to be a huge boon in the nursing field.
The Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania-based school created the program to address the fact that all new advanced practice nurses will be expected to be educated to the doctoral level within the next five years, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Nurses who hold a master's degree will be able to earn the degree in as few as two and a half years. Bachelor's degree holders who enroll in the program part-time are expected to finish in approximately five years. Bernard Graham, dean of the university's Nesbitt College of Pharmacy and Nursing, said earning a doctoral degree will put "nursing on a par with other health professions."
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