Nursing Practice Doctorate

Program of Study

The Doctor of Nursing Practice is a professional practice degree program of rigorous academic experience designed to prepare nurses to assume the highest levels of practice. Graduates will demonstrate advanced competencies in evidence-based practice, leadership, organizational change management, health policy, advocacy, and academic teaching.

Mission
The Graduate Programs department in Nursing at California State University San Marcos strives to prepare nurses to assume the highest levels of nursing professional practice in the service of an increasingly complex, evolving, and diverse global community.

Vision
The Graduate Programs department shares the overarching vision of the School of Nursing to foster research, evidence-based practice, and innovative teaching strategies. We seek to expand the nursing profession in our community by empowering our faculty, staff, and students to be collaborative members of interprofessional teams, and leaders in promoting the four spheres of care, for diverse populations across the lifespan in a variety of settings:

• health and well-being/disease prevention
• chronic disease care
• regenerative or restorative care and
• hospice/palliative/supportive care

Faculty, staff, and students will reflect the diversity of our region and will champion equitable access to higher education and across systems of care.

Values

• Integrity
• Mutual Respect
• Compassion
• Adaptability
• Equity

BSN-to-DNP Program

The BSN-to-DNP program has two Advanced Practice Nurse areas of focus for students to choose from: Family Nurse Practitioner or Psych/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner.
All students complete a total of 1,000 doctoral clinical hours, comprising 750 hours in direct patient care and 250 hours in the completion of an Evidence-Based Practice project, at a clinical site.
This is not an online program, but a hybrid program with at least 50 percent of class meeting time conducted face-to-face on campus.

Admission and Application Requirements

Applicants to the BSN-to-DNP program will be admitted annually in the Fall semester. To be considered for admission, all required applications should be received by May 1. Review of applications will continue until all the openings for Fall semester have been filled. Applicants are notified of admission decisions following this process.

Applicants must meet the following minimum requirements for admission to the program. No exceptions are made.

1. Active, unrestricted, California RN license with no disciplinary action pending or imposed.

2. Baccalaureate degree in Nursing (BSN) from a nationally accredited institution.   

3. Minimum GPA of 3.2 on a 4.0 scale in the last 60 semester units of college/university coursework.

4. Academic transcripts showing the following prep for the program

• Statistics course
• Undergraduate physical assessment course inclusive of a laboratory experience or equivalent content in the undergraduate program.

5. Minimum of two years of full-time clinical registered nursing experience within the past two years.

6. Narrative statement describing leadership potential through community service, unit-based or hospital committee participation, precepting, and/or unit-based leadership roles.

7. Narrative statement describing unit or department-based quality management topic that can be expanded as a DNP project.   

8. Narrative statement articulating career/professional goals as an advanced practice nurse.

9. Letters of recommendation: one professional and one academic.

Program Student Learning Outcomes

The Graduate Programs’ learning outcomes are based on the ten Domains of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essential Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education. Course student learning outcomes incorporate the advanced-level nursing education sub-competencies.

A graduate of the Doctor of Nursing Practice:

1. Demonstrates integration, translation, and application of established and evolving disciplinary nursing knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as knowledge from other disciplines, including a foundation in liberal arts and natural and social sciences.
2. Demonstrates person-centered care that focuses on the individual within multiple complicated contexts, including family and/or important others.
3. Provides population health that spans the healthcare delivery continuum from public health prevention to disease management of populations and describes collaborative activities with both traditional and non-traditional partnerships from affected communities, public health, industry, academia, health care, local government entities, and others for the improvement of equitable population health outcomes.
4. Generates, synthesizes, translates, applies, and disseminates nursing knowledge to improve health and transform healthcare.
5. Employs established and emerging principles of safety and improvement science.
6. Engages in intentional collaboration across professions and with care team members, patients, families, communities, and other stakeholders to optimize care, enhance the healthcare experience, and strengthen outcomes.
7. Responds to and leads complex systems of healthcare.
8. Applies information and communication technologies and informatics processes to provide care, gather data, form information to drive decision making, and support professionals as they expand knowledge and wisdom for practice.
9. Forms and cultivates a sustainable professional identity, in accountability, perspective, collaborative disposition, and comportment, that reflects nursing’s characteristics and values.
10. Participates in activities and self-reflection that foster personal health, resilience, and well-being; contribute to lifelong learning; and support the acquisition of nursing expertise and the assertion of leadership.
      

Special Requirements

Students in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program must pass a physical health examination, and demonstrate a sufficient immunization record consistent with that required of clinical placement in local healthcare agencies. Students are required to complete a background check including statewide, county, and federal screening. The DNP academic advisor for the School of Nursing, working with the Office of Disability Support Services, will assist students who have accommodations to meet the standards of the program.

Continuation

Students must maintain a 3.0 GPA and a grade of C (2.0) or better in all classes. If the GPA falls below 3.0 for two consecutive semesters, the student will be dropped from the program. Students are admitted in a cohort model, and are expected to complete the program of study within five years of when they first began the program, with one additional year granted by approval of the director of the program for extenuating circumstances. Students must be continuously enrolled or request a leave of absence if time is needed away from studies.

Advancement to Candidacy

Students are enrolled in a seminar-style group for work on their Evidence Based Practice project: courses NURS 730 , NURS 732 , NURS 734 , NURS 736 , NURS 738 , and NURS 740 .
Each seminar will be led by a faculty who will serve as the project chairperson for students in that series of courses. An additional faculty will be assigned as the culminating project committee member considering the topic of the project and faculty interest/expertise in the area.
Students will advance to candidacy in the fourth semester of the program, in course NURS 732 , once they have successfully passed an oral defense of their written project proposal that represents a qualifying assessment.

To advance to candidacy, a student must:

• Be in good standing with an overall GPA of at least 3.0.
• Complete all course work in the first three semesters of the plan of study.
• Successfully propose the Evidence Based Project to the faculty.
• Submit the Evidence Based Project Institutional Review Board application.

Degree Requirements (79 Units)