Modern medicine requires modern-day qualifications for the medical professionals that are part of the team. And perhaps no other career path in medicine is this truer than for advanced practice nurses.
Nurses are the backbone of any healthcare facility, providing backup work for physicians and keeping healthcare facilities moving with their expert experience. Now, as healthcare becomes a more business-like and scientific career choice, higher-level qualifications mean nurses are on the same footing as medical doctors.
What Is A Doctor Of Nursing Practice?
The doctor of nursing practice is a degree for highly qualified nurses. This is a doctorate-level degree equivalent to a PhD degree and is the pinnacle of nurse education.
Doctor of nursing practice graduates have many career options available to them; they may choose to stay working in patient-focused roles or they may take the opportunity to work behind the scenes in less hands-on clinical roles and more leadership and healthcare service roles.
While the doctor of nursing philosophy (PhD) is a research and scholarly degree, the doctor of nursing practice is much more practical and clinical and gives the DNP graduate the opportunity to work in more specialized nursing roles.
The Benefits Of Having More Qualified High-Level Nurses
Every hospital, medical practice, and healthcare facility needs to have highly qualified staff both on the floor and at the helm.
With a new and refreshed push towards education in nursing, this important and vital role for any healthcare facility has the opportunity to have highly qualified professionals working. This means that the workload for everyone involved in the healthcare facility can be shared amongst professionals that know exactly what they are doing and have the experience to back up their decisions.
Depending on the state in which nurse practitioners work, day to day activities may include the opportunity to take medical histories from patients, do physical exams, order and interpret lab tests, and perhaps even diagnose conditions and prescribe the correct medicine without the supervision of a physician.
Having more qualified nurses on site is a benefit for everyone involved and if you are considering becoming a nursing practitioner then taking one of the many online BSN to DNP programs is a great place to start.
How To Become A Doctor of Nursing Practice
To become a qualified doctor of nursing practice, nurses need to work their way through education and gain practical clinical experience.
All nurses need to take a bachelors of nursing science (BSN) degree as an undergraduate to qualify as a registered nurse (RN), once students have gained their BSN in nursing they will need to take the National Council of Licensure Examinations (NCLEX) in order to become a fully registered nurse.
For many working in nursing, this is as far as they will go, but for nurses who are looking for top level jobs as well as more challenging and perhaps more leadership roles within their careers, doing an online BSN to DNP program might be exactly what they choose to do.
There are a number of online BSN to DNP programs available for nurses to take, and most online BSN to DNP programs are part-time which allows for nurses to continue working and getting paid while they complete the program.
Doing an online BSN to DNP program is how many DNP qualified nurses have qualified, because the modules and variety of experience offered are very detailed and nurses are able to gain a lot of information and a lot of clinical practice while they study.
To gain a DNP qualification, nurses need to take a DNP course. Nurses who want to improve their career prospects from a registered nurse but do not wish to take one of the online BSN to DNP programs may instead wish to do a masters of science of nursing, but this will not give them the higher qualification that they would get if they took an online BSN to DNP program.
Career Opportunities
Due to the depth of the experience of a DNP qualified nurse, and due to the education level offered by taking an online BSN to DNP program, career opportunities for DNP qualified nurses are very varied.
By taking part in one of the many online BSN to DNP programs to gain your qualification, you will be at the pinnacle of nursing healthcare education, and as such, nurses who are qualified to this level can expect to have the top level jobs available to them when they qualify and can show that their experience is right.
Specialized Nursing
For many nurses who decided to take an online BSN to DNP program, they will already have an idea of their own specialist interest subject and where they would like to specialize as a nursing practitioner.
Not all nursing practitioners taking an online BSN to DNP program will decide to specialize and work in only one field, for those that do, careers are easier to grow. Specialization also allows the nursing practitioner to really focusing and hone the skills and experience for the betterment of the patients that they are looking after.
Some of the specialized nursing practitioner roles may include:
- Nurse practitioners (NPs) – nurse practitioners are more generalized nurses and can work in a variety of healthcare facilities, from hospitals and clinics to mental health facilities, and many more.
- Certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) – certified nurse midwives work in maternity units and in specialist maternity care facilities, they may also be on the road as traveling midwives or work in family care clinics. These specialist nurses are experienced and have the qualifications to help deliver babies and work with mothers and families who are both expecting and have already delivered babies.
- Certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) – the importance of having a certified registered nurse anesthetist on the team during medical procedures cannot be overstated. This specialist role means that the nurse practitioner is well experienced and very qualified at their job and an expert in their field.
- Clinical nurse specialists (CNSs) – clinical nurse practitioners can be more autonomous than registered nurses. They may work in various healthcare facilities collaboratively with other medical professionals to diagnose, treat prescribed medications, and order laboratory and diagnostic tests.
- Family Practice Nurse (FPN) – family nurse practitioners usually work in family medicine clinics, but they may also be found in hospital facilities too. This is an exciting role for nurse practitioners because it may mean that they get to see patients right from birth all the way up to adulthood and continue to treat their families throughout their careers.
- Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner (AGNP) – adult gerontology specialists like adult gerontology nurse practitioners work with elderly patients, usually in care homes are hospital settings, to help patients who will be suffering from diseases and illnesses more often seen in the elderly patients such as dementia arthritis, and diabetes.
- Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) – women’s health nurse practitioners are important nurses in most healthcare facilities including family practice clinics and specialist women’s healthcare clinics, such as sexual assault centers and hospitals. Most women’s health nurse practitioners work alongside qualified and board-certified obstetrics and gynecology specialists (OBGYN) to provide women’s specific healthcare.
- Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (ANNP) – neonatal nurse practitioners are generally found in hospitals working within acute neonatal intensive care units (NICU). These specialists in neonatal care look after babies, especially babies that need extra care.
- Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) – pediatric nurse practitioners work specifically with children to ensure that children’s health is looked after, while pediatric nurse practitioners may work in family care centers, they are most often found in hospitals working in ICU.
- Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) – psychiatric care and mental health is a big and very important topic, having qualified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners on-site both in psychiatric facilities and in more clinical facilities such as hospitals and family care clinics, means having qualified and experienced professionals who can deal with a whole range of psychiatric and mental health issues.
Nurse Educator
For specialist nurse practitioners who are looking to move away from the patient facing roles and into more leadership positions, becoming a nurse educator is a great opportunity.
Working within the nursing faculty at all levels ensures that the future of nursing is secure, through working with students of all levels to provide in-depth education and help them achieve their dreams of becoming registered nurses and even doctors of nursing practice nurses.
There is a crisis looming in the USA. We may soon see a shortage of well-qualified nurses. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has said that graduates from DNP programs who wish to be nursing educators and take part in nursing faculty will be welcomed with open arms.
Healthcare Lobbyist
A healthcare lobbyist is a really exciting and important role for qualified DNP nurses.
For experienced nurses who want to move away from working specifically with patients in a frontline healthcare situation, taking on a role as a healthcare lobbyist is a great way to be involved but behind the scenes.
This role involves a lot of work and many nurse practitioners are involved quite heavily in the politics behind nursing.
Many healthcare lobbyists who hold DNP qualifications feel that this role is just as important as working on the front lines, because their experience and higher level qualifications allow them to advise policymakers and change healthcare policy for the betterment of patients in the future.
For DNP qualified nurses who have any experience or background in law and corporate health environments, this is a perfect role that will allow them to change the face of healthcare regulation and legislation going forward.
This role is very different from most nursing roles, and is based more on a political scientist salary which sits at around $100,000 per year.
Clinical Researcher
Another behind-the-scenes healthcare career for DNP qualified nurses is that of a clinical researcher.
Clinical researchers may be working on the front lines or they may be working in more research-based facilities, but every clinical researcher will be using data and analytics gathered, either from their own practice or as part of a wider data capture drive, to inform healthcare legislation and design new methodologies for nursing and healthcare in general.
Clinical research practitioners work very well with healthcare lobbyists to provide the evidence-based research that will help to change healthcare policy going forward.
This is a really interesting role for nurse practitioners who are interested in data analytics, and for nurse practitioners who wish to be behind the scenes changing the face of healthcare, nurse education, and working practices for the betterment of patients and the efficacy of medicine.
Healthcare Executive
The last career in this article that we will discuss is that of a healthcare executive.
Healthcare executives may be given a number of different job titles throughout their career depending on which healthcare facility they work in, but all healthcare executives work behind-the-scenes with nursing teams and other healthcare professionals to ensure that the nursing teams working in the facility are working to the best of their ability and are given the best opportunities to work to the best of their abilities.
Healthcare executives are generally on the administration side of healthcare and will be pivotal to providing great leadership to healthcare teams and ensuring that over the long-term hospitals, private practices, and other healthcare facilities are able to run smoothly and efficiently.
This is an interesting and varied leadership role that can see qualified DNP nurses taking on roles within executive leadership teams, the salary for this type of role sits at around $95,000 per year and most healthcare executives will be working within hospital environments.
The need for more highly qualified nursing practitioner leaders has become ever more apparent in the last decade, where hospitals and medicine, in general, have become more scientific and more businesslike. It is the role of healthcare executive nurse practitioners to ensure that the nursing side of medicine is running smoothly and efficiently on all sides, and that nursing teams are given a voice.
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