282 ■ III: ROLE FUNCTIONS OF DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
Undergraduate and graduate students must be exposed to nurses with research
and clinical doctorates. Educational preparation for evidence- based practice need not
mean that the process of knowledge generation be ignored. Students need to under-
stand the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline of nursing and how they shape the
unique contribution of nurses today in order for them to imagine PhD education as a
career possibility. Students need to know who on their faculties are nurse scientists and
the focus of their research. Relevant work of nurse scientists can be woven into course
readings and classroom discussions throughout their educational preparation.
Nurses with research and clinical doctorates need to be deployed in ways that
maximize their potential contributions to both research and evidence- based practice.
Faculties need to confront the differences between and complementarity of these two
types of doctorally prepared nurses and determine how they can best contribute to the
mission of the institution. Career paths need to be tailored so that faculty with PhDs and
DNPs can advance without the assertion that they are the same. All of this needs to take
place within a culture of appreciation, in which faculty members value and facilitate one
another’s contribution to the institution’s mission.
The generally longer time required to earn a PhD is the focus of projects includ-
ing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (2016) Future of Nursing Scholars program,
which was launched in 2014. The attention that PhD faculties are giving to making their
programs more efficient offers hope that they may attract more applicants in the future.
■ CONCLUSION
The shortage of nursing faculty ensures that both PhD- and DNP- prepared nurses will
be needed in the future. At the present time, the production of nurses with PhDs is
insufficient to replace retiring PhD- prepared faculty. They can be regarded as an endan-
gered category. Measures that could potentially support the role of PhDs as generators
and conservators of knowledge and disciplinary transformers are proposed. Without
actions to encourage nurses to earn PhDs, and to appropriately deploy both PhDs and
DNPs in academic institutions, the long- term survival of nursing as an academic disci-
pline is in jeopardy.
■ REFERENCES
Altman, S. H., Butler, A. S., & Shern, L. (Eds.). (2016). Assessing progress on the Institute of Medicine Report
the future of nursing. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2008). The essentials of baccalaureate education for profes-
sional nursing practice. Washington, DC: Author.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2011). The essentials of master’s education in nursing.
Washington, DC: Author.
Fang, D., Li., Y., Arietti, R., & Bednash, G. D. (2014). 2013-2014 Enrollment and graduations in baccalaureate
and graduate programs in nursing. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Golde, C. M. (2006). Preparing stewards of the discipline. In C. M. Golde & G. E. Walker (Eds.),
Envisioning the future of doctoral education (pp. 3–20). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Institute of Medicine. (2010). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. Washington,
DC: National Academies Press.
LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2013). Nursing research: Methods, critical appraisal & utilization (8th ed.).
Maryland Heights, MO: Mosby.
Melnyk, B. M. (2014). Building cultures and environments that facilitate clinician behavior change
to evidence-based practice: What works? Worldviews on Evidence-Based Practice, 11 (2), 79–80.
doi:10.1111/wvn.12032