Doctoral Programs in Nursing - Essay Example

"Doctoral Programs in Nursing" is an exceptional example of a paper on care.
The profession of nursing has flourished and career opportunities along with educational paths have been created. Terminal degrees in nursing have started gaining recognition and their importance is being realized by the students as well as the policymakers. Doctoral programs in nursing are mainly either practice-focused or research-focused. Both programs have their own benefits and are aimed at providing a boost to the nursing profession.

Practice Focused Nursing Programs are not very old and the first such program was initiated in the year 1979 at the Case Western Reserve University. With this step, several other programs followed and up to fifty different practice-focused programs are running. The practice-focused nursing program is a degree that can be earned following completion of a bachelor’s degree in nursing. The main purpose of this degree is to clinically train the nurses with an in-depth knowledge of the evidence-based practice. It serves the purpose of effectively training the nurses to enhance the healthcare system and provide effective health care services to the patient. The program works to amalgamate information technology and healthcare services. It also works to provide preventive services for the betterment of the health status of the people on a national level (American Association of Colleges of Nursing 2004; Chism 2009).

Career opportunities in the field are wide owing to the unavailability of nurses having higher degrees. The demand for practice-focused nursing programs is growing and this may be the reason why the American Association of College of Nursing has planned to change the minimum requirement for the practicing nurses to hold the degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice (Chism 2009).

The research-focused nursing program which is mainly the degree of doctor of philosophy is not as new as the practice-focused nursing programs. Approximately since 1935, PhD in the field of nursing was available as a course but the only issue was that this course was not offered in a large number of universities. With time, the nursing PhD programs progressed and achieved approval and gained much attention following the year 1970. The basic purpose of these programs is to polish nursing students to become expert researchers for the field of nursing and contribute towards new additions and innovations in this field. The focus is mainly on teaching the student's research practices and to spread new knowledge amongst the nursing students through the results. The requirement for this program is either bachelor's or master's in nursing (American Association of Colleges of Nursing 2004; Chism 2009).

The research focused on nurses train nurses who can become effective faculty members. With the persisting deficiency in the teaching staff at the universities, this degree is famous and career opportunities are vast. This degree is also important because it helps towards the addition of new concepts to nursing (Chism 2009).

In conclusion, it can be summed up that both the research focused and the practice-focused nursing programs are of great significance to the nursing profession. These two programs run together and form a major part of producing effective healthcare providers. Research focused nurses create paths for practicing nurses by providing them with new researches and results for improving healthcare delivery.