38 ■ I: HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR ROLE DELINEATION
at least. I actually encourage my own master’s- prepared faculty to seek EdD prepara-
tion in nursing education over DNP or PhD education if their goal is to remain in the
academy and focus on teaching, not practice or clinical research. There are still many,
many educational issues that need investigative inquiry and the small resurgence of
EdD in nursing education programs is probably reflective of the disconnect between
the original intent of the DNP and formal preparation for the teaching role. The
results of our second doctoral nursing faculty survey, found in Chapter 11, reports
the rising prominence of DNP preparation in the academy— an unintended conse-
quence of the DNP the AACN in 2014 did not foresee. The last two unresolved issues
(the second and fourth listed previously) are not discussed sufficiently in this text,
so they will be addressed here. First, there continues to be debate over the required
number of clinical hours necessary for the degree, particularly for post- master’s stu-
dents. Most programs have interpreted the statement from the AACN’s Essentials of
Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice (2006) “In order to achieve the DNP
competencies, programs should provide a minimum of 1,000 hours of practice post-
baccalaureate as part of a supervised academic program” (p. 19) very, very liberally.
Even the usually supportive NONPF never fully endorsed the mandate that every
post- master’s clinical DNP student needs 400 more hours of actual practice (if the
original MSN degree in pediatrics, e.g., had 600 hours). According to the NONPF
(2006), “The evidence for the AACN recommendation for 1,000 clinical hours for all
practice doctorate students has not been presented” (p. 1). This issue was debated
at length at the 2007 DNP Conference in Annapolis, Maryland. For some it seemed
unrealistic that part- time students (who work full- time) would need a total of 1,000
clinical hours (including whatever was earned for the master’s degree), plus course-
work (and still remain fully employed, particularly if they were receiving employer-
based tuition benefits), to complete the degree. At Drexel, almost all of the students
work full time and attended doctoral study as part- time students, and they barely
seemed able to complete the rigorous intense curriculum that was structured year
round (four quarters) over 3 years (the third year was devoted exclusively to the
completion of the clinical dissertation). The Drexel program did not require 1,000
hours, but it focused more on the quality of the two required doctoral practice prac-
tica and not the quantity of hours. According to the new DNP white paper (AACN,
2015), it is again reinforced that students are not allowed to count work (paid hours)
toward the minimum number of required hours. But this white paper (even uninten-
tionally), may have unnecessarily muddied the water on this clinical hour require-
ment with the aforementioned statement that programs may award doctoral prac-
tice hours “credit” to students in DNP tracks who have national certification. What
if DNP Program A will award XX credits toward the 1,000 clinical hour requirement
to the ANCC certified FNP doctoral student, but competitor DNP Program B decides
to award “more” hours.
More over, this author wonders if this will ultimately be an available option
where some programs may require little if any new doctoral practice clinical hours.
I remain skeptical that the monitoring of practice hours is vigorously enforced in all
programs and worry that this is an area of compliance (even for accreditation that
again is not required for post- master’s programs) that is open to abuse. Additionally,
many of these students did not complete hundreds of hours of precepted time dur-
ing their MSN degrees in nursing administration, and therefore it seems it would be
exorbitant to require them to complete 1,000 total hours for the degree. This is not