UT Nursing School at Houston to Offer
Texas' First Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree
HOUSTON – (April 27, 2006)–The University of Texas School of Nursing at Houston will be the first school in Texas to offer a doctor of nursing practice (D.N.P.) degree, starting this fall.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the school’s plan April 20.
“This is a practice doctorate, as opposed to a research doctorate. It is designed to develop advanced practice nurses as clinical experts in patient care management,” said Joanne V. Hickey, Ph.D., R.N., coordinator of the new D.N.P. program. “These are nurses who are going to practice at the highest level and who exemplify and provide leadership for quality patient outcomes.”
The new D.N.P. program, designed for post-master’s students to complete while attending class part-time, will total 46 credit hours over eight academic semesters. All of the first students accepted into the program will be nurse practitioners with master’s degrees with advanced practice status in Texas.
The curriculum will include courses on ethics, informatics, emerging science, evidence-based practice, and patient management.
“Candidates for this program do not aspire to be researchers. They want hands-on contact with patients,” said Patricia L. Starck, D.S.N, dean of the UT School of Nursing. “We foresee that many will seek careers that combine teaching with practice. Since Texas needs nursing teachers, we intend to give priority admission to any faculty currently teaching who is an advanced practice nurse.
Texas is fourth from the bottom of all 50 states in the severity of the nursing shortage, Starck said. “We need 35,000 more nurses now to just to be at the national average. We need more nursing faculty in order to expand enrollment, and this plan will help us do that,” she said. “These graduates will help meet the needs of increasingly complex health care and the large number of elderly patients with chronic illnesses.”
The development process began about five years ago, when the UT nursing school identified the need for this advanced degree and began working to offer it. For the last four years the UT School of Nursing has been part of a national consortium of nursing schools planning the degree. Over the past year, Coordinating Board staff carefully reviewed the plan before recommending it for a vote, which it passed.
“There are 11 other D.N.P. programs in the United States, and 140 are currently in development,” said Hickey. “We plan to create an innovative educational program by taking full advantage of the world-class resources of the Texas Medical Center. This will enable us to educate outstanding advanced practice clinical nurse scholars who will provide superior patient care and outcomes, and also be leaders in health care.”
Elizabeth Fuselier, D.N.P., new executive clinical director of UT Health Services, is the one faculty member at the UT School of Nursing who holds the degree. Two other faculty members, Julie Lindenberg and Cynthia Freeman, are enrolled in the D.N.P. program at Columbia University.
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