Family Nurse Practitioner

Utilizing a systems approach and a background in basic physical assessment, advanced physical assessment skills are studied. The identification and interpretation of abnormalities in the physical exam are emphasized in depth. The approach to the development of the differential diagnosis is introduced. The goal of this course is to provide the critical thinking necessary for the beginning advanced practice nursing student to analyze history and physical exam data.

The goals of this course are to provide students with a knowledge and understanding of the actions of drugs in order to enable them to use therapeutic agents in a rational and responsible manner in patients. Initially, basic principles of pharmacology will be reviewed (from N5375 course), including absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of drugs by the body. Drug-receptor interactions will also be presented and illustrated with appropriate examples. The focus of these lectures will be case-based whenever possible to demonstrate the therapeutic application of these pharmacologic principles and how this translates into efficacy and potential toxicity.

Part one of two. In this course we will examine the normal physiological function of organ systems, the mechanisms for the maintenance of health, and the pathophysiological alterations in body function that lead to disease. Each class will focus on a specific physiologic process or organ system. We will pay particular focus to diseases that commonly occur across the lifespan, examining common etiologies, pathogenic mechanisms, clinical manifestations, and common treatments of each.

Part two of two. In this course we will examine the normal physiological function of organ systems, the mechanisms for the maintenance of health, and the pathophysiological alterations in body function that lead to disease. Each class will focus on a specific physiologic process or organ system. We will pay particular focus to diseases that commonly occur across the lifespan, examining common etiologies, pathogenic mechanisms, clinical manifestations, and common treatments of each.

This clinical course is designed to further develop the role of the student to provide care to individuals with complex, comorbid, advanced, or terminal illness and their families across care settings.

This is the first of three consecutive courses focusing on utilizing a systems and developmental approach in primary care. This course will focus on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive care management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical and mental health illnesses as they affect individuals across the lifespan. For each system studied, health assessment, diagnostic findings, and multi-modal management will be highlighted.

This second course of three consecutive courses focuses on using a systems and developmental approach to expand the knowledge of the advanced practice student. This course will focus on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive multi-modal management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical and mental health illnesses as they affect individuals across the lifespan. Emphasis will be placed on the age­ specific biopsychosocial variables influencing those health problems and behaviors which are most likely to present, and are most amenable to management in a community setting.

This is the third course of three consecutive courses focusing on a systems and developmental approach in primary care with emphasis on risk assessment, comorbidities and acuity to determine the most appropriate level of care. This course will focus on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical and mental health illnesses as they affect individuals across the lifespan.

The DNP intensive practicum focuses on the delivery of fully accountable, evidenced based care for patients across clinical sites. The DNP student will demonstrate an integration of comprehensive assessment, advanced differential diagnosis, therapeutic intervention, evaluation of care for patients and synthesis of evidence-based practice with patients with a variety of conditions. In this context, the DNP student will organize and develop a professional portfolio. 

The DNP residency and portfolio is designed to demonstrate that the DNP graduate possesses the advanced knowledge of clinical management to provide high quality care. The components of the residency are scholarly activities across settings combined with documented outcomes achieved in multiple sites of care. The DNP resident, in varied settings, assumes an expanded scope of practice for a panel of patients with the principles of continuity based care as paramount. Gaps in clinical experience opportunities are identified at regularly scheduled meetings with the advisor and arrangements are made to enhance the practicum as indicated.

This course covers the broad scope of preconception, prenatal, and postnatal care including theoretical and practical knowledge for the essentially uncomplicated childbearing period. Routine care, risk assessment, and commonly encountered complications will be reviewed with a strong focus on the physiological, social, emotional, and educational components of preconception, prenatal, and postnatal care.

This course is an introduction to family theory. It introduces the student to a new epistemology, one in which the central concepts stress a view of causality that is circular, rather than linear. Concepts of the family as a system and theoretical models upon which to base clinical practice will be discussed. The course will apply family systems concepts and methods to problems related to health and illness faced by families.

This clinical is designed to provide students the opportunity to manage patients in a specialty-care or global health care setting.

This course is designed to introduce the student to the role of the nurse practitioner as a provider of community centered family primary care.  The focus will be on health maintenance and illness prevention.

This core course examines contextual contributors to health status and the current social, legal, and political determinants of healthcare systems, emphasizing the U.S. system. Issues are explored to understand their impact on current and future delivery of health care, in particular on advanced practice nursing. The class focuses on how to bring the professional values of nursing to bear in policy debate and how nurses partner in the policy process to improve health outcomes of populations and quality of the healthcare delivery system.

The purpose of this course is to critically analyze healthcare policy in the US. Included is a focus on the advanced practice nurse role in shaping and influencing policy through advocacy and leadership to improve patient outcomes.

This course is designed to provide the student with a systematic approach to the delivery of health promotion and disease prevention in primary health care to individuals, families, communities, and aggregate populations.

This course is intended to provide a strong foundation in the concepts of genetics and clinical applicability of genomic concepts commonly seen in advance practice nurses’ clinical practice. Both classical Mendelian and molecular genetics will be examined, in order to provide a knowledge base that will enable the advanced practice nurse to integrate genetic and genomic knowledge into clinical practice. Using a case discussion approach, clinical issues of genetics testing, genetic exceptionalism, individualized risk assessments and predictions are explored throughout their life span.

This course is designed to provide the student with the knowledge and skills regarding the uses of information technology to support evidence-based practice. The course will provide an overview of informatics topics of most relevance to evidence-based practice including: computer systems and system development; standardized clinical terminology; informatics standards; electronic health records; retrieval and critical analysis of digital data, information, and knowledge; clinical decision making; decision support; decision analysis; shared decision making; and computer aided instruction.

Aimed at increasing student awareness of the prevalence, context, dynamics, and potential outcomes of interpersonal violence (IPV), the goal of this course is to provide advanced practice nurses with the information needed for prevention, identification, assessment appropriate intervention, and resource referral for clients and families who are at risk for, have a history with, or are currently experiencing IPV. Course content will explore the dynamics, causes and consequences of IPV, specifically: domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and sexual assault.

This course is designed for graduate nurses to provide them with the skills to understand and utilize research evidence in decisions about clinical practice. The course is designed to help graduate nurses articulate relevant practice-based questions, search the literature to identify relevant evidence, evaluate the quality of research on which the evidence is based, and discuss the application of the evidence in clinical practice to improve quality of care.

This course focuses on advanced practice issues not usually familiar to the average nurse. It explores the dimensions of independent advanced practice nursing (APN) in our challenging and constantly changing health care environment. Legal issues, regulation, reimbursement, practice management concerns, and development of a comprehensive view of the APN’s role in the current health care environment are stressed.

This course is designed to introduce the student to routine and episodic primary care of the pediatric patient.  The focus will be placed on age-appropriate physical, cognitive, and emotional development, as well as frequently encountered illnesses seen in an outpatient setting.

This clinical course is designed to develop clinical proficiency with the pediatric population. The clinical practicum is designed to prepare the students to provide primary health care to the pediatric population focusing on health maintenance. The clinical experience will familiarize the student with age-appropriate physical, cognitive and emotional development as well as routine and episodic care.

This course is designed to integrate knowledge from Pediatric Primary Care for the FNP into clinical application.  The focus will be placed on age-appropriate physical, cognitive, and emotional development, as well as frequently encountered illnesses as seen in an outpatient setting.

This course is designed to provide the student with the knowledge and skills necessary to serve as a member and lead interdisciplinary groups in organizational assessment to identify systems issues and facilitate organization-wide changes in practice delivery utilizing quality improvement strategies. Course content focusses on understanding systems concepts and thinking to achieve results in complex health care delivery systems. Frameworks, approaches, and tools that foster critical thinking are examined as mechanisms to formulate vital questions, gather and assess relevant information, develop well-reasoned conclusions, test conclusions against relevant standards, compare conclusions with alternative systems of thought, and communicate effectively throughout the process.

Utilizing a background in basic physical assessment, advanced practice nursing students apply the didactic content introduced in N8786 to this clinical practicum. Advanced physical assessment skills and the identification of abnormalities in the physical exam and appropriate documentation are emphasized with a focus on the ability to integrate systems appropriately. The complete pelvic exam is included. As well as complete male genital exam.

The clinical practicum builds upon knowledge obtained in Diagnosis and Management II. This practicum is designed to expand the role of the nurse practitioner student to provide primary care to complex patients, families and communities, in an outpatient settings across the lifespan. The goal of the practicum is to prepare the students for the delivery of comprehensive primary care. The practicum focuses on chronic physical and mental illness causing various complications.

The clinical practicum is designed to assist the student in the application of the principles of primary care learned in Diagnosis and Management I. The student is prepared to provide primary health care for patients, across the lifespan, in an outpatient setting. This course will focus on health care maintenance, diagnosis and management of commonly encountered illnesses in primary care.

This course will introduce the DNP student to clinical decision making and evidence-based practice for the provision of primary care to individuals across the lifespan. Utilizing the case narrative format and DNP Competencies as a framework, the student will analyze clinical decisions and apply evidence for best practice. Case studies derived from complimentary practicum that reflect the critical thinking skills needed to diagnose and manage acute and chronic illness will be presented and critiqued.

This course addresses the application of epidemiology and environmental approaches to inform the clinical practice of health care of individuals. An understanding of health sciences based on groups of people, including environmental health, occupational health, and some aspects of genetics, can orient the practitioner with an individual patient. These external influences are modified through social, cultural, and behavioral factors. Addressing these factors should help to anticipate and improve patient outcomes.

This course is the first of two designed to introduce students to scholarly writing and dissemination for clinicians. The course provides students with practical information, exercises, and resources for successful clinical manuscript preparation and clinical conference poster and oral presentation. The course introduces students to fundamental skills for scholarly writing including familiarity with professional journals and conferences, utilization of electronic resources for literature searches and citation management, writing process and organizational skills, identification of predatory journal and conference enterprises, and academic integrity and the continuum of plagiarism. The course culminates in an annotated bibliography on a topic of the student’s choosing that allows for the synthesis and application of the skills and resources developed over the course. In conjunction with part two of the course, students are prepared for a lifelong approach to integrating scholarship into clinical practice.

Continuation of N9150.

This seminar is designed to further develop the role of the DNP student, in the provision of care to individuals and families, with complex, chronic, comorbid, advanced or terminal illness through the lifespan across clinical settings. Using iterative case narrative writing, critical thinking and action in practice will be described. Using the DNP Competencies in Comprehensive Care as the framework, students will analyze clinical decision-making and utilize evidence for best clinical practices. In depth reflection and analysis, synthesis, critical appraisal and application of evidence will be highlighted.

This seminar course is designed to further develop the role of the DNP student in the provision of care to vulnerable individuals, families within their communities in various clinical settings. Using the DNP Competencies in Comprehensive Care as the framework, students will analyze clinical decision-making and utilize evidence for best clinical practices. Through case presentation the student will discuss multiple expressions of chronic physical and mental illness commonly seen in community settings. The focus will be placed on populations seen routinely in the community who are at risk for various complications that may lead to impairment and disability.

This course focuses on the development of a fundamental knowledge base for the assessment, diagnosis, and management of patients presenting for sexual and reproductive healthcare in primary care settings. Topics include the most common sexual and reproductive health maintenance issues and challenges across the life cycle. This course include an overview of deviations from sexual and reproductive well-being that are within the scope of practice of the advanced practice nurse practitioner and identifies conditions that require collaborative management and/or referral. A simulation lab session concurrent to the course enhances and grounds the didactic experience.

This course is designed to provide the tools for the doctorally prepared nurse to evaluate, translate and integrate published research results into clinical practice. During the course, students will learn how to conceptualize clinical practice problems and transform them into answerable clinical research questions, how to search for the best clinical evidence, and how to assess clinical evidence using basic epidemiological, biostatistical and scientific principles. The course will culminate in a systematic review or meta-analysis of a body of research relevant to advanced practice nursing.