Thank you for your insight. Considering the last year, I can say only what I hope my doctorate will allow me to do and know this could change. My goal as a nurse has always been to provide the best care possible for those I serve. By attaining my DNP, I am looking to join academia and formally train the nurses of the future. My dream has always been to teach and a terminal degree with help me attain this goal. Informally I have enjoyed mentoring the nurses of the future as I have interacted with them as students via their clinicals and I look forward to playing a more active role.
Professionally I look forward to the unexpected opportunities my DNP is likely to offer. With my varied background I am excited at the adventures I may find as a result of my previous jobs as I have been an operating room nurse, a hospital educator, office nurse, data abstractor, data analysist, informatics nurse, manager, and a nursing home nurse. Recently I was thinking about how my perspective of my abilities has changed from my first job to my current job. In the operating room I had one patient at a time and I always said that was all I could handle. Yesterday I was the nurse for twenty-nine patients (residents) at a time. Never in my wildest dreams did I predict that, and I am excited as I expect my DNP will offer similar unforeseen opportunities.
With the help of technology and scientific research, healthcare is a rapidly growing entity that requires professionals to be flexible and innovative. As a result, there is a need for advancing nursing knowledge so that nursing professionals can engage in conversations with a host of multidisciplinary healthcare professionals that help shape/steer the future of healthcare. To be a nurse with a practice or research doctorate is to join a community of nurse leaders dedicated to contributing research or practice that focuses on addressing the multifaceted challenges of healthcare and effecting positive change within the healthcare system. Both Ph.D. and DNP prepared nurses are tasked with guiding our profession and facilitating practice change.
According to Michael and Clochesy (2016), “health system leaders and stakeholders are calling for . . . reforms . . . to accelerate the uptake and application of new knowledge and practice and to improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes” (p. 84). Therefore, the expectations associated with both the DNP and Ph.D. are as follows: use research (Ph.D.) in various clinical settings to help improve patient care and outcomes, and apply research (DNP) in the clinical setting to help improve patient care and outcomes. Essentially, the Ph.D. and DNP are complimentary, terminal degrees that work together to gather important healthcare data, create practice protocols, implement practice change, and evaluate the effects of these changes. In short, terminal degree holders should be change agents that focus on areas of leadership, evidence-based research/practice, and policy. Therefore, the overall expectations set by the degree plans and executed by the nurse scientists or practitioners are to create and implement healthcare plans that are rooted in evidence-based research.
Nurses who hold different degrees (BSN, APRN) traditionally focus on providing patient care. In other words, they are more focused on treating and caring for the patient than examining the data that drive practice change. This focus, however, is not a damaging school of thought—nurse clinicians help care for the growing population of sick individuals in the United States.
My motivation to pursue a doctoral degree seamlessly aligns with the considerations and expectations of the DNP degree. More specifically, I am heavily interested in evidence-based practice and its effect on positive healthcare outcomes. I have been employed at both a private hospital and a teaching hospital. I recognized my love for patient care early on; it was not until I started working in a teaching facility that I realized my passion for evidence-based patient care. I would compare my patient’s outcomes between both facilities and make suggestions to my private hospital based on data gathered independently. My main goal was to decrease the primary cesarean rate of primigravida patients by utilizing new practice methods that I learned at my teaching facility. Additionally, I have recently transitioned to the role of clinical professional development educator. I am responsible for implementing education rooted in evidence and proven to improve patient care and outcomes.
Michael, S.J., & Clochesy, J.M. (2016). From sc
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