Family Nurse Practitioner - Admission/Application Essay Example

Family Nurse Practitioner Introduction My choice for studying and analyzing the Family Nurse Practitioner offered at Cincinnati University is mainly because the program incorporates pharmacology course, which is my main concern. I am planning to teach the nurses in Cincinnati advanced pharmacology because the community in that area appears to have a limited number of nurses specialized in that field. In light of that, I took some time to analyze the Family Nurse Practitioner FNP program and my findings were as follows. The curriculum consists of seventeen courses that are spread over six semesters that one needs to undergo to become a fully recognizable practitioner. A Family nurse practitioner pays special care towards family dynamic and generally assesses how illness affects families (University of Cincinnati, 2013). As Nurse practitioners FNP, nurses dedicate a great amount of time in providing medical services to the community. It is their duty to get directly involved in carrying out treatment and diagnosis procedures making them a fundamental part of care and recovery. Their direct linkage to patients by diagnosing, treating, and prescribing drugs is what makes it very important for them to be proficient in pharmacology. I studied the efficiency of the FNP curriculum by using the table 13.1 provided by Keating (2011) as the baseline and the analysis was as below. The curriculum The nursing college at University of Cincinnati offers post graduate programs such as the FNP at the campus and online. One can choose to either enroll to the online classes or can visit the institution and carryout a face-to-face registration with the admissions team. In this report, I am mainly going to focus on the online FNP program, which has six semesters done in autumn, summer, and spring for two years. The seventeen courses included in the curriculum include courses such as Advanced Physiology and Pathophysiology, pharmacology for advanced nursing practice, and theoretical basis for clinical reasoning. There are also three seminars and three practicum courses, which are taken within the final two years of pursuing the program. The curriculum itself has The curriculum offered by University of Cincinnati (UC) nursing college recognizes that as a nurse earning an MSN is supposed to be an enhancing process rather than a rebuilding process. The curriculum at UC nursing college is designed to enhance nurses’ skills and prepare them for greater roles in their medical field. The Institution understands that the preparation is key towards a successful and intuitive curriculum. This is why the institution’s curriculum factors in three important areas when organizing the courses to be included in the curriculum, this are Core, Specialty Didactic, Specialty Practicums courses. The core courses work towards building the student as an individual by utilizing their gifts and unique abilities. The specialty didactic helps nurses realize their specialty and work towards their ideal capacity within the nursing field. For the specialty practicum works towards allowing students to start, practicing their acquired knowledge within different settings thus helping them spread their abilities across the field. Target learners The Family Nurse Practitioner program targets RN nurses who seek to pursue and complete an advanced nursing education that will see them learn how to manage and diagnose complex medical conditions. Therefore, any practicing RN nurse can take the program. Upon completion of the program, the nurse acquires FNP in Master of Nursing and this automatically renders the nurse eligible to take either American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) or American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) certification exams. Which means that the program also targets those nurses that want to be either ANCC or AANP certified. Organization’s Mission and philosophy The agency’s mission statement and philosophies are available for on the institution’s website and the mission can be found on most of the brochures offered to students who are willing to join or seek to know more about the organization. The nursing college at UC has its own mission statement which is in congruence with the overall mission statement at the university. The University’s mission statement aims at serving the people by providing experience-based research and learning (University of Cincinnati, 2013). It is committed towards diversity and excellence in their overall activities including faculty, staff, and students. The organization is also committed towards providing an inclusive environment where freedom and innovation inquest flourish. The nursing college’s mission aims at three key targets, which include: Providing a life changing and patient centered medical attention. To carryout groundbreaking research through innovation And to ensure that the next generation nurses are well educated and inspired (University of Cincinnati, 2013) Both mission statements are easy to comprehend and are direct so that each nurse can be able to easily relate and work towards meeting their goals. The nursing college has its philosophies, which are in line with both missions as they seek to prepare nursing professions and provide a basis for graduate education. However, one other observation I noted is that not all educational programs have a mission, vision, and philosophy statements. Instead, the faculties have their own mission, vision, and philosophy statements like in this case the nursing faculty, which are consistent with those of the organization. The agency’s overall purpose and goals for individual courses directly relate to the mission, vision, and philosophy statement. Each course has goals and purpose statements that are congruent with the mission, vision, and philosophy statements of the agency. The organization’s framework, which requires that each program factor Core, Specialty Didactic, Specialty Practicums courses in their curriculum ensure that the program meets its desired results at the same time aligning with the agency’s mission and vision (University of Cincinnati, 2011). Sources of Information There are several sources of information on nursing college of UC but most of them are found online and at the agency offices. One can engage through online chat with the administrator on the agency’s website or through the help of an enrollment advisor who can be contacted on phone and mail info@nursingonline.uc.edu. Since my main interest is with the online Family Nurse Practitioner program, I outsourced most of the information through online sources by vising the agency’s website (University of Cincinnati, 2013). From the website all, the necessary information is available for any student who is willing to enroll to the program. There are the mission, vision, and philosophy statements for both the nursing college and the entire organization. The website has a lot of useful information such as the curriculum, career advice for nursing practitioners and contains information on the practitioners’ responsibilities and their expectations to the society. I also visited other websites that have news relating to the agency such as US news on education colleges (US News, 2013) and campus explorer (Campus Explorer, 2013). The websites generally rank the university in comparison to other colleges in terms of quality of education lifestyle and the ability of the institution to meet its mission, vision, and values. Besides the comprehensive information, I was able to outsource from the websites I was able to contact the nursing college through the phone where I talked to the enrollment advisor. This is where I was able to get the information on how students who are enrolled for online classes are able to attend their classes and meet the curriculum objectives and goals. This is where I also found the information about enrollment and the requirements one is supposed to have met such as having a minimum GPA of 3.0 in BSN. The other sources of information used in this report include useful books on curriculum development written by prominent authors in the field such as Sarah Keating, Habanek, Billings, and Halstead who all have written texts on either curriculum development, curriculum analysis or provided information on teaching nursing. A book such as the one written by Keating was particularly useful as it provides a guideline upon which I could apply towards analyzing the effectiveness of the curriculum and program delivery towards students, faculty, staff, and the community as a whole. The necessary revisions that can be carried out on the curriculum in the next two years The Family Nurse Practitioner seems to have undergone proper planning, however, after careful scrutiny in my opinion a few adjustment that ought to be made in reference to various curriculum development texts. The first change that I would recommend regards providing information on the courses included in the curriculum so that before enrollment a student is able to know whether their specific desires will be met by pursuing the program. According to Habanek (2005), “the syllabus should explain how the course has been designed by the professor to facilitate learning and what the professor will do to help all students achieve the goals. A good example is the pharmacology course, which I am more interested in, from all the information sources I was able to access the curriculum did not give exact details on the course. Therefore, my suggestion would be to leave it open instead of the brief overview, so that any interested party whether registered for the program or not should be able to view it and decide whether it covers their demands before enrolling. The other issue about the curriculum that could be changed in the near future is inclusion of mission, vision, and philosophy statement. Basing on Keating’s (2011) text it is important that these statements be included in each programs curriculum. It is also important for this statements to be congruent with the agency’s mission, vision, and philosophy statements. Inclusion of these statements will help the agency to ensure the students meet their own personal goals while at the same time being in correspondence with the institution’s objectives and goals. References Campus Explorer. (2013, January 5). University of Cincinnati, Main Campus (UC)- Reviews. Retrieved from Campus Explorer Inc.: http://www.campusexplorer.com/colleges/E7E13954/Ohio/Cincinnati/University-of- Cincinnati-Main-Campus/reviews/ Habanek, D. V. (2005), An examination of the integrity of the syllabus. College teaching, 62-64 Keating, S. B. (2010). Curriculum development and evaluation in nursing education. New York: Springer Publishing Company. University of Cincinnati. (2011, January 2). Master of Nursing: Curriculum. Retrieved from Online Nursing Degree: http://nursingonline.uc.edu/online-nursing-degree/nursing- degree-curriculum/ University of Cincinnati. (2013, January 1). Online Nursing Degree: Family Nurse Practitioner. Retrieved from Master of Nursing: http://nursingonline.uc.edu/online-nursing- degree/family-nurse-practitioner/ University of Cincinnati. (2013, March 1). UC fact sheet: About UC. Retrieved from University of Cincinnati: http://www.uc.edu/about/ucfactsheet.html#mission US News. (2013, February 10). University of Cincinnati. Retrieved from 2013 U.S.News & World Report LP: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best- colleges/university-of-cincinnati-3125 Read More