Doctor of Nursing Practice

Please Note: Due to State Board of Nursing requirements and a shortage of clinical placement sites, students who wish to enroll in the MSN Education or FNP programs or the DNP program must reside in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico or Wisconsin.

Message from the Director

Welcome to the DNP program from Director Deena Nardi

Nurse of the Future

The health and well being of citizens in our country is truly in the hands of nurses. With a soon-to-be shortage of primary care providers and grave shortages in nursing faculty, advanced practice nurses and nurse practitioners affecting nursing education and the healthcare of the nation, nurses will become increasingly responsible for primary health care practice.

The Leach College of Nursing has taken another leadership role in advancing evidence-based graduate nursing education, advanced nursing practice and health care delivery. USF’s DNP program is one of only 120 in the nation and the fourth program established in the State of Illinois.

DNP degree will prepare graduates to provide the most advanced level of nursing care for individuals and communities based on evidence-based scientific, medical and nursing research and practice guidelines.

As a graduate of USF’s DNP program, you will be an advanced practice nurse of the highest caliber, fully prepared as a primary health care provider to practice in health care settings that serve our must vulnerable citizens, including the poor, elderly, working families, the marginalized and the uninsured. A special education concentration is available to prepare you to educate tomorrow’s nurses.

The DNP program is a natural outgrowth of the university’s highly acclaimed graduate nursing programs that have sustained a 100 percent pass rate on certification exams over the past three years. USF’s DNP, MSN and BSN programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The college’s diversity and social justice issues in a global society course is recognized by the trans-cultural nursing society as a program of study leading to certification in trans-cultural nursing.

Accessible programming

The DNP program is delivered online and is accessible to graduate nursing students nationwide. Be ready to learn the newest and latest treatment protocols. DNP nursing faculty members, many of them EdgeRunners themselves, bring cutting edge technology and practice to your learning experience.

The DNP student will provide and direct primary health care to individual patients and families, promote the public’s health, manage vulnerable populations who experience health disparities, manage and direct provider services, and influence health care policy. The elderly, patients with chronic physical and mental illnesses, families at-risk, and women and children in violence shelters are proposed emphases of study, but students may specialize in vulnerable populations they plan to work with upon graduation.

Students may also select a Nursing Education Concentration, which will prepare graduates for the National League for Nursing Certification Examination, allowing them to function as faculty in nursing programs across the country.

You’ll drill deeply into your particular areas of interest by conducting your own evidence-based research, using principles of appreciative inquiry, which applies Franciscan ideals of respect and non-intrusion.