I found an article, a press release coming out from the National League of Nursing, this is the organizing body for some of the standards loosely associated with the American Nurses Association. The NLN really tries to provide standards and look at what we should be doing moving forward and they’ve put out the standard that generalist nurses should strive for master’s degree as they move up and forward in their career and that advanced practice specialist nurses should be striving for a doctoral program, a doctorate nursing practice.
So that’s a change and we’ve talked about that change that used to be that you could become a nurse practitioner, advanced practiced nurse in other specialties at the master’s level and that seems to be changing, moving forward to a doctoral program. Nothing wrong with that to be honest with you, I think that the more we can do to advance the nursing profession, the better. I want to read to you a quote off my screen from Doctor Beverly Malone, who is the CEO of the NLN and she says, “With health care reform a reality, there is a special urgency in our discussions. As noted in this latest Reflection & Dialogue, ‘Time and focus are critical….Nursing must not be distracted from its core mission of providing safe, quality patient care and of stepping forward when the nation, through its legislative structure, has identified nurses as primary providers of care services.’ ”
Health care reforms going on around the world right now and one of the things that is moving forward very quickly is the concept of nurses as a primary care source of healthcare. I think that’s going to continue to advance but we need to continue to advance our education. If nurses are going to be providing that level of care, we should have the best education possible, the highest level of standards in education possible for that very important role and it’s going to be a doctoral process and that’s just where they are moving forward.
Now this is a discussion, it’s ongoing, it’s going to probably advance state by state as each state nursing board applies this to their own nurse practice act so you’ll see this move forward in steps but it is something that you should consider and I don’t think that it’s going to be prohibitive. I really think there’s going to be enough resources out there to assist in bringing more nurse practitioners at that level into the healthcare system and because it is a very cost effective way to provide care in what we’re doing and I look forward to more on how that steps forward.
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This article has been featured in the news segment of the Nursing Show episode Toxic Syndromes with Lisa Booze and Episode 141
