[Joelle] When students enter the adult geriatric nurse
practitioner program, or the adult geriatric acute care nurse practitioner program, they
can really count on developing on a whole other level as diagnosticians, and folks who
are prepared to treat patients, but they can also count on getting curriculum that can
develop them as leaders.
[Hilaire] The DNP program at the University of Washington
really has a focus on social justice and health equity. We really want individuals coming
into the program and leaving it to have a better appreciation for what are health disparities
and how can we, as advanced practice providers, reduce the disparities and really move towards
health equity.
[Pauline] People come from a variety of backgrounds
and I feel like everyone kind of brings in rich experience, and that can contribute to
their future practice.
[Hilaire] We realize that most people are working practitioners,
and are coming back to school, and so we've designed the program to work around work schedules
as much as possible.
[Pauline] The DNP program takes nine quarters to complete,
and then that's over a span of about three years.
[Hilaire] So the two tracks are the adult gerontology primary care nurse practitioner and the adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner.
So primary care nurse practitioners have the focus on health promotion, a really ongoing relationship with patients that they see
on an ongoing basis, and are really focused on management and health promotion over a long term.
Whereas, acute care nurse practitioners are more focused on really complex, acute illnesses and injuries,
and then restoring people to health, at which point they would transfer care back to the primary care provider.
The curriculum for the, both the primary care and the acute care, are similar in the first year. We really focus in the first year on
systems change, leadership, understanding how to translate evidence into practice. So
both the primary care and the acute care students start off with that.
[Pauline] The second year though you start to split
off into your track, and you start doing the physical assessments, the pharmacology courses,
and then management of the adult courses the second year.
[Hilaire] And then the program culminates in year three
with the final essentially practice clinical immersion, and then also a capstone project
that they do, that is really taking what they've learned throughout the program and implementing
it in an agency for systems change or policy advocacy or quality improvement.
[Joelle] We have a good strong relationships with local
medical centers and clinics where our students are placed to do their clinical training,
and Seattle is a wonderful environment for that, because we're really on the cutting
edge of healthcare.
[Pauline] I feel that the faculty are really invested
in their students and they're willing to go the extra mile to help students achieve their
individual goals. The great thing about having faculty that are both academics and practitioners,
is that they're able to draw from their personal experiences as providers, and really bring
that into a classroom setting, and it allows for really great discussion among students.
[Hilaire] We've actually been training nurse practitioners
since the 1990s, and we have a lot of experience doing it. And as such, we're recognized as
one of the leaders in the area, and also one of the top ranked programs nationally.
[Joelle] This day and age, nurse practitioners who
are trained as AGANPs, really have a broad range of opportunities in terms of work environments.
So, you'll find adult geriatric nurse practitioners working in the hospital, taking care of acutely
ill individuals, but you'll also see people in various specialty areas, taking care of
folks in primary care, nursing facilities, long-term healthcare facilities.
[Hilaire] Our focus is to help people change their lens
of how they view healthcare, how they view patient care, in order to really make people,
by the end of the program, someone who can lead change in a healthcare environment.