Family Nurse Practitioner, D.N.P.

The Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Program prepares nurses for Advanced Practice in providing primary care across the lifespan. The FNP program provides intensive preparation to provide comprehensive primary care with an interdisciplinary focus. The program prepares students using didactic learning, laboratory skills, human patient simulation, and extensive clinical experiences providing care for all ages of patients.

Clinical time in underserved population clinics, urgent care, and specialty clinic rotations provide the student with exposure to patients and skills needed for practice. Clinical sites are arranged by faculty to provide the best learning opportunity.

Graduates of the FNP program will be eligible to sit for Board Exams from the American Nurses Credentialing Center and American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Learning Outcomes

1. Develop new practice approaches based on nursing theory and theories borrowed from other disciplines to improve health and reduce health disparities locally, nationally, and globally.
2. Employ strategic leadership skills and inter-professional collaboration to influence health policy, advocate for social justice, and promote equity locally, nationally, and globally.
3. Implement ethical, cost effective, and evidence-based changes in care systems, while advancing the profession.
4. Provide leadership at the highest levels to design, direct and evaluate system changes to deliver and promote patient-centered care that is culturally competent, safe, timely, effective, efficient, and equitable.
5. Engage in complex, evidence-based advanced nursing practice, and evaluate innovative approaches to care delivery for individuals, communities, and populations.

Nurse Practitioner Competencies

In addition to instruction to meet the Student Learning Outcomes, graduates of the FNP program option are provided sufficient didactic and clinical instruction to meet the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties Population-Focused Nurse Practitioner Competencies- Family/Across the Lifespan (NONPF, 2013). The competencies include population focused competencies in Scientific Foundation, Leadership, Quality, Practice Inquiry, Technology & Information Literacy, Policy, Health Delivery Systems, Ethics, and Independent Practice.

The course load each semester is between 6-12 credit hours. Students are considered as full-time students throughout the program.

Admission

Requirements for admission to the FNP program may be found on the School of Nursing  page in this Bulletin. Requirements for admission to the Graduate School, including language proficiency, may be found in the Admission  section of this Bulletin.