DNP Role Development for Doctoral Advanced Nursing Practice, Second Edition

(Nandana) #1
415

chapter EIGHTEEN


The DNP- Prepared Nurse’s Role


in Health Policy and Advocacy


Sr. Rosemary Donley and Carmen Kiraly


This chapter discusses the value of Essential V, Health Care Policy for Advocacy in Health
Care , in actualizing the role of the advanced practice nurse (APN). In order to place
Essential V and the others from The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing
Practice (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2006) in context, the
authors briefly examine the evolution of the AACN’s Position Statement on the Practice
Doctorate in Nursing (AACN, 2004).


■ THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRACTICE DOCTORATES


The 11 authors of the report, The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing
Practice, linked their proposal to the Doctor of Nursing (ND) program that was devel-
oped at Case Western Reserve in 1979. Briefly describing the trajectory of clinical doc-
torates, they noted that in the early 1960s some schools of nursing offered doctoral
degrees focused on practice rather than research. Most readers are familiar with the
Doctor of Nursing Science (DNS, DNSc, or the DSN) programs and degrees. Scheckel
(2009) provides a time- oriented context about the emergence of the Doctor of Nursing
Practice (DNP) degree describing four phases in the development of doctoral educa-
tion in nursing: the doctor of education (EdD; 1900– 1940), a PhD degree in the basic
or social sciences (PhD: 1940– 1960), a PhD in the basic or social sciences with a minor
in nursing (PhD: 1960– 1970), and the proliferation of two pathways (DNSc and PhD:
1970– present). Other authors have discussed the motivation behind these early efforts.
Commenting on the EdD in nursing education first offered at Columbia University in
1924, Grace explains that education was an attractive field for nurses who envisioned
academic careers because Schools of Education were receptive to students from other
practice disciplines. Although PhD programs in education and in the basic or social sci-
ences did not include nursing theory or science, pursuit of these degrees was stimulated
by the federally financed Nurse Scientist Program (Edwardson, 2004; Grace, 1989). That
talented men and women sought advanced research or education degrees outside of
the discipline of nursing reflected not only the state of nursing science in the 1950s and

Free download pdf