Graduate education, certification, and practice focused on patient/family are the three primary criteria of advanced practice nursing. I selected the criterion of graduate education because I feel that education will always be the key foundation to any career. Graduate education is absolutely essential In the advanced nursing role. Through graduate education, the advanced practice student not only gains the expansion of academic knowledge but has the opportunity to advance his or her kills through comprehensive clinical experiences.
An advanced practice nurse has the responsibilities to assess, diagnose and manage care of patients and “as the knowledge base within specialties has grown, so too has the need for formal education at the graduate level” (Hammer, 2009, p. 79). Just as we see growth in within the specialties, it is only natural that we would expect to see growth in advancement of education such as the development of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DON) degree.
As anyone who has been in nursing for any length of time would concur that nursing is a continual learning process; one might say that nurses must possess a passion for a lifetime of learning. I feel that in the long run the Implications of the DON degree will become a mandate especially for the advanced practice nurse working In an acute care setting. Hammer discusses how the advanced practice nurse Is defined by the three primary criteria and seven core competencies and that the practitioner Is expected to flawlessly unify these components in daily practice. Nursing has a particular need to achieve greater credibility with medicine. Organized medicine has historically been eager to point to nursing’s internal differences in PAN education as evidence that Pans are inferior providers” (Hammer, 2009, p. 80). Through graduate level education, we can hope to alienate these internal differences. Hammer, Ann B. Advanced Practice Nursing: An Integrative Approach, 4th Edition. W. B. Saunders Company, 2009. Vitiation file.
