Family Nurse Practitioner (post-BSN to DNP with Master's Exit)
Program Description
The MSON offers the post-baccalaureate entry to the Doctor of Nursing Practice (post-BSN to DNP) with a master’s exit. This pathway provides all post-baccalaureate nursing students the opportunity to enter graduate school and have a direct pathway that allows them to exit at the master’s level or matriculate directly to the doctoral degree.
The post-BSN to DNP with the MSN exit is designed to provide students the opportunity to assimilate and utilize in-depth knowledge of nursing, biophysical, psychosocial, analytical and organizational sciences, with sophisticated informatics and decision-making technology to develop collaborative strategies that optimize the health of individuals, families, communities and systems. The DNP program curriculum is based upon the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) (2006) Essentials of Doctoral Education. The MSN program curriculum is based on the AACN (2011) Essentials of Master’s Education. These programs build upon a foundation of baccalaureate education. Grounded in the Mercy and Jesuit traditions, the DNP program emphasizes the student’s development as an expert clinician with strong leadership capacity, a commitment to service, and skills to act as change agents, translating clinical research into improved health care.
The Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) major prepares the advanced practice nurse to provide primary health care services across the lifespan to individuals, families and aggregates in the community. Besides primary care services, critical foci include practice models which emphasize the family as unit, health promotion and disease prevention and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The goal of the FNP program is to prepare highly skilled and culturally sensitive advanced practice nurses who are committed to providing quality and cost effective primary care services to individuals, families and communities. The program places special emphasis on providing services to the medically underserved. The MSON is committed to flexibility in the program and therefore offers both full-time and part-time options for degree completion.
The post-BSN to DNP with MSN exit with a major in FNP requires a total of 72 credits. A total of 47 credit hours and 720 clinical hours must be completed for the MSN exit where the Master of Science in Nursing is conferred. An additional 25 credits and additional clinical hours are required for the completion of the DNP.
Graduates of the program are eligible to sit for the national certification examination administered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) or the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Program (AANPCP). Students are urged to contact the specific Board of Nursing in the state in which they intend to practice in order to ensure they are in full compliance with the education, practice and certification requirements.
The following program outcomes will be achieved at completion of the post-BSN to DNP with master’s exit:
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MSN Program Outcomes |
DNP Program Outcomes |
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1. Demonstrate professional role practice consistent with the competencies of the unique specialty at the master’s level. |
1. Demonstrate professional role practice consistent with the competencies of the Doctor of Nursing Practice. |
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2. Translate theoretical and conceptual knowledge into advanced nursing practice actions that promote optimal health care quality and patient safety outcomes. |
2. Formulate innovative theoretical and conceptual frameworks that ensure optimal health care quality and patient safety outcomes. |
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3. Integrate informatics, health care technology, and interpersonal collaboration in the delivery of person-centered nursing practice for individuals and populations. |
3. Translate evidence to produce innovative models of care that integrates inform |