To the editor
With respect to the articles concerning the DNP, we agree with Dr Broome that we need more “constructive debate and dialogue in nursing.”
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However, we would add that nursing is in dire need of more critique, debate, and even some “prickly academic disagreement and discord”—especially with regard to the doctor of nursing practice. Despite the initiation of some 20 new PhD programs in nursing since 2000, this degree continues to fail to attract a large cadre of students, and PhD programs across the nation continue to fail to graduate those enrolled expediently. In 2004 Dr Terry Valiga of the National League of Nursing testified in a congressional briefing that it takes an RN an average 8.3 years (post-MSN!) to obtain the doctorate, clearly a disincentive for increased enrollment in doctoral programs.Dracup et al
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refer to Drexel’s DrNP in that same issue and we would like to respond. The Drexel Model DrNP degree was designed in part because we felt it illogical to ask any CRNA, CNM, or NP to forego employment and weaken their clinical skill base and pursue PhD study full-time for three years or more (unless to become a nurse scientist). The aim of the Drexel Model Clinical Research DrNP is to give the post-MSN doctoral student advanced nursing knowledge in the context of clinical practice and additionally give the student clinical research skills that are essential if we are really going to grow our evidence-base for practice. It is folly to assume PhD in Nursing graduates should or can conduct all the empirical clinical nursing research our society needs. Further, the DNP graduate will not have the research skills necessary to credibly lead an interdisciplinary clinical research team.Unlike the DNP, we think our knowledge-generating practice doctorate model (with a clinical dissertation) will be a partner to the PhD (like the DrPH, PsyD, or DSW degrees). Our first class of DrNP students have told us they generally want to allot approximately 25% of their careers to knowledge generation and clinical research. Indeed we earnestly anticipate the contributions these clinical scientist scholars are going to make to our nursing science knowledge base and they won’t have to give up their positions or put them on hold to accomplish this.
References
- Constructive debate and dialogue in nursing.Nurs Outlook. 2005; 53: 167-168
- Reflections on the doctorate of nursing practice.Nurs Outlook. 2005; 53: 177-182
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© 2005 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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- Constructive debate and dialogue in nursingNursing OutlookVol. 53Issue 4
