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"I was definitely impressed and the class was
the brightest group of people I've ever been associated
with," Hampton said.
In addition to UCSF, similar programs also are offered
at Samuel Merritt College/St. Mary's College, San Francisco
State University and the University of San Francisco
in Northern California and at the Hahn School of Nursing
and Health Science at the University of San Diego.
Nationwide, 33 nursing schools have launched entry-level-to-master's
programs and the trend pioneered by Yale University
is gaining momentum, according to a survey by the American
Association of Colleges of Nursing.
K. Sue Hoyt, Ph.D.(c), RN, is the MEPN coordinator
at San Diego, which started the program last year in
response to an obvious need. "The community was
asking for a program like this," Hoyt said, adding
that about 1,300 inquiries poured in from people with
degrees.
The 28 people accepted into the program will finish
their first year in May. They'll return in September
in one of three tracks-nurse practitioner, health and
care systems administration or clinical nurse specialist.
"We did a feasibility study that showed there
truly was a need for this program in the community,"
Hoyt said. "Also, if someone wants to enter nursing
who already has a degree, this program offers the best
way to achieve their goals as quickly as possible."
Yale pioneered the concept of accepting non-nursing
students in 1974 with an initial enrollment of a dozen
students, a number that has steadily increased. The
latest class of 66 students started in August and is
undergoing an intensive first 11 months of preparations
in basic nursing skills and background sciences designed
to prepare the students for advanced practice roles.
They then will be able to take the NCLEX exams and work
part time to gain experience while finishing the three-year
program.
"It was a really heretical idea and the major
nursing groups were quite threatened by the idea that
people with no background in institutional nursing could
get an education and go straight into advanced practice,
but the program was successful and really took off,"
said Margaret Beal, Ph.D., MSN, a certified nurse-midwife
and Yale's program director for the graduate entry prespecialty
in nursing option.
While most GEPN candidates have been students with
other degrees who decide to pursue nursing, people from
other professions also have joined the program, such
as a banker who became a family nurse practitioner and
carries a heavy caseload of HIV-positive patients, and
an anthropology professor who decided to become a professional
midwife and now runs a private practice in the Pacific
Northwest.
"What distinguishes Yale is that we really tailor
the curriculum to dovetail well with student goals and
to thoroughly prepare them for actual advanced practice
nursing roles," Beal said.
With the successes at Yale, UCSF and other schools
that have had programs for some time, other nursing
departments are considering offering some form of MSN
for people with non-nursing degrees. Many nursing schools
recently started programs and at least 17 have such
plans on their agendas, according to the AACN.
At DePaul University in Chicago, the nursing program
received approval in April 2001 to start a master of
science in generalist nursing for students who already
have BA/BS degrees in other fields. While starting with
just a few students who were already interested in such
a program, the last class enrollment was 24 and interest
is high.
"The program has grown dramatically in popularity
since the word got out," said Susan Poslusny, Ph.D.,
RN, chair of the nursing department at DePaul. "The
students are wonderful. They're very bright and accomplished
learners who have a broad background in other areas
that enriches the educational experience for all of
the students as well as the faculty."
The two-year program has some prerequisites such as
organic chemistry, a year of biology and some allied
field requirements such as psychology, basic statistics
and economics. The curriculum contains 830 clinical
hours and prepares students to become licensed RNs with
a master's degree. If they then want to specialize to
become a nurse practitioner, nurse anesthesiologist,
midwife or health administrator, they can return and
complete a post-master's in the field.
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