Dr. Deborah Dillon discusses the online Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at Duquesne University.
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Thank you all for joining today’s session to discuss Duquesne University’s online Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program. We’re joined here today by the director of the Adult-Gerontology Program through Duquesne, Dr. Dillon. Hi, Dr. Dillon, how are you doing today?
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
I’m great. How are you? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. I’m doing wonderful. So before we jump into some of our topics and items of the programs that we have here today, I just want to go through some of the agenda of what we’re going to be discussing in our webinar today. So we’re going to kick it off with some introductions. I’m going to let you, Dr. Dillon, just discuss your background and your expertise. And then we’re going to go into a little bit of what is adult gerontology, what does the industry look like? What are some career outcomes for potential students joining our programs, Post-graduation? And then we’re going to go into some more informational prog programmatic information about our programs here at Duquesne for both our MSN programs and our post-master’s certificate in adult gerontology, and then go into some of the admissions requirements and specifics for each of those programs. So, Dr. Dillon, if you just want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you found yourself here at Duquesne University.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Great. Well I was a practicing acute care nurse practitioner for a number of years in cardiac electrophysiology. And I found myself really interested in continuing to educate the, what we call the next generation of nurse practitioners. So I found myself back in school for my doctorate at Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western. And then I had my first opportunity for teaching and directing in an academic setting for acute care NP’s at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. And we moved back to Ohio for a while, something called grandchildren was a drawing card.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
And so I taught at Case Western the school of nursing again, and I was really looking for a director position for acute care nurse practitioner program. And Duquesne happened to have an opening for their brand new program for adult-ger acute care NPs, and I applied and things worked out. And so I’ve been in my role now for a year. I’ve been teaching at Duquesne as well as in the process of developing the new adult gero acute care NP program. I’m excited about bringing the program to the community. It is an online program. So we do have students from all over the country that are enrolled in the program.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. We’re so glad to have you here at Duquesne. And like you mentioned, these programs specifically are newer to Duquesne University. We had launched them last year in 2020, so it was a new position that we opened up and we’re just so glad to have you and just going through and over your bio, I did want to touch and just congratulate you. I know you’re an author of a new book that came out last year talking specifically about nurse practitioners and I just wanted to say congratulations, and if you had anything to say about that and your time writing it and just anything else on that.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Yeah. Well, thank you. And I was finally very excited that it came into print in March of this year. And the book is on transition to practice for the new nurse practitioner, because I realized in teaching students and then working in clinical practice with new practitioners, there’re just certain obstacles that we have to overcome, and these are the transitions. And we’d look at you’re going from a very experienced role as a registered nurse, where you’re viewed as usually by most of your colleagues as expert in your area. And when you transition to the adult, your acute care NP role, you’re now a novice. And it’s really hard to go from being that go-to person that everybody came to and ask questions. And you were a great resource and you were the best at maybe inserting IVs and G-tubes whatever skillset you had as an RN to now being a brand new provider where the skill sets are very new, your role is new.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
And I can remember this phase as if it was yesterday where I remember saying, I hope nobody asks me any questions because I’m not really comfortable yet in in my new role. So it’s going through that imposter phase where yes, I have gone through the education and training and I have the knowledge base and some of the skill base, but I’m not that polished provider that I was as an RN. And so the book looks at those different phases and how you can best move through those phases. And some of the best tips are making sure that the job you select is the right job for you.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
And they’re specific tips in the book on that, as well as talking with other colleagues and having them help you with this transition process, as well as how do I get through hospital credentialing and my board certification? So, there’s chapters in the book to help you with that. We cover them in the academic programs. And I know that everybody covers these topics, except for some reason, when the students start practice, this is an area that they’re still very, very uncertain in. So, that’s why I felt the real need for the book to further highlight these areas.
Speaker 1:
Well, congratulations on that. And yeah, it seems a definitely an area that needed to be explored a little bit more.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Yeah. I also did my doctoral scholarly project look at transition to practice for the adult gero acute care NP in particular. So I use that research from my scholarly project as well in the development of that book.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. Well, we’re going to jump into some of the frequently asked questions that we get from potential students just looking into gerontology and whether that’s a transition from another NP specialty that they’re currently in, or maybe this is jumping into their first one. So if you just want to tell us, and maybe for those who don’t know some of the specifics what is adult-gerontology acute care?
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Great, yes, I’d love to. So adult gero acute care NP is one of the six population focuses or foci that nurse practitioners can specialize in. The others are primary care, neonatal, women’s health, psych mental health, just to name a few of them. And the adult gero acute care NP is the NP that provides advanced nursing care to adults and older adults, elderly patients. We go from the age spectrum of 15 years to end of life. So it could be a hundred years plus, and we look at the management of acute, chronic, and critical conditions. So this is where differs from primary care nurse practitioners, where they deal predominantly with wellness and primary health issues. Often individuals define an acute care NP by their setting, where they work and most acute care NPs work in acute care settings, but that’s really not what defines an acute care NP it’s defined by their patient population.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
And so these are usually patients that are in acute care settings because they’re physiologically unstable, and they require often invasive monitoring to provide their care. So [inaudible 00:08:57] individuals sometimes choose acute care over other specialties is sometimes they really prefer that adrenaline side to patient care that you get in the acute care setting, not to say that you can’t have your days or moments in primary care or other settings, but most registered nurses have been used to working in an acute care setting, and they’re most familiar with that environment. So they desire to stay there, to deliver the care. Hospitals over the last several years, our healthcare systems have started to really embrace the consensus model for nursing for advanced practice, which was implemented in 2008, which is hard to believe that’s over 10 years ago, that what this means for acute care nurse practitioners is that healthcare systems now, if you want to be employed in a healthcare setting in a hospital environment, you must have the certification of an adult gero acute care.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Previously family nurse practitioners, and primary care nurse practitioners were able to obtain positions in a hospital setting. And really, as I said, in the last several years, healthcare settings have finally embraced the consensus model and are really making this distinction in their new hires. So adult gero acute care NPs are usually employed in hospital settings, but I can give an example of my own practice setting, where I worked in cardiac electrophysiology. I took care of those patients, both in the inpatient setting, and then I would see them in the outpatient setting in the outpatient office. So I would do their outpatient management of their heart failure or device follow-up. I would get them ready pre-procedure or see them post-procedure for follow-up care. And then on the inpatient side, I would do inpatient consults, admissions, discharges, and daily follow up.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
So, most adult gero acute care NPs are employed in hospital settings. And even though the education is a generalist role for the nurse practitioner in that setting, meaning we cover all systems that you will encounter in caring for critically ill patients. The vast majority of adult Cero to care MPS do work in a subspecialty, such as cardiology, endocrine, neuro, et cetera. And so post-graduation then they are employed in these sub-specialties and they usually get additional training and education through continuing education seminars, et cetera, to expand their knowledge in these specific areas. As far as career opportunities and salary expectations, there is a large market for acute care NPs, and a lot of this is because, again, of hospitals really embracing that consensus model and saying, I can no longer hire just any NP, it has to be specific for the population focus that they’re taking care of. So I just took a quick look yesterday, nationally, as well as locally in the Pittsburgh area, and nationally, there were close to over 200 positions for acute care nurse practitioners in a variety of settings.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Some are employed as a hospitalist and for individuals who might not be familiar, with what a hospitalist is years ago, when you were admitted to the hospital, your primary care physician often took care of you when you were in the hospital setting. And over the last several years, hospitals have employed hospitalists to provide that care. And in a lot of settings, nurse practitioners perform that role of a hospitalist. So you may do the initial admission and discharge as well as care coordination for that patient during their hospitalization. Other areas include pulmonary, cardiology, heart failure. In as many subspecialties as you can identify, there’s usually a nurse practitioner that’s working in that role. In the Pittsburgh area, I saw at least 50 positions available for acute care nurse practitioners, which I thought was really exciting. And again, recently we saw a huge, that’s what I describe it, a huge need for the acute care NP with COVID because often they manage the patients in the critical care areas or in the intensive care unit settings. And with COVID, there is a lot of ventilator and critical care management that was required for these patients.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
So, a lot of these roles were filled by nurse practitioners who have expertise in this area. And part of the education and skills that you obtain in the adult gero acute care NP program prepare you for these roles. Salary I saw ranges from 90,000 to 120,000 a year, which is really a great salary for a starting NP. They usually will include relocation benefits. Educational benefits are on an average about 2000 a year for a lot of the larger health care systems. So that helps cover continuing ed, as well as your licensure requirements and certification requirements, challenges for adult gero acute care NPs, we only have 23 states that have full practice authority, meaning that you are not functioning under the direct, I don’t want use the word supervision, but it’s essentially what it is of a collaborating position. And so some of the challenges, again, not just for acute care NPs, but for all NPS will be moving towards being able to practice to the full extent of our licensure, which would include full practice authority. And this was supported by the National Academy of Medicine, which was formerly the Institute of Medicine.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
What experience do you need to become an adult gero acute care NP? So you need at least one year of acute care experience. That does not mean that you have to work in an intensive care unit but you have to have worked in an acute care setting. If you’ve worked in an ICU environment, that’s great. And I do look at all the applications so that I make sure that if individuals are coming to the program with just acute care experience, that I identify those students because they’ll have different learning needs regarding just for example, EKGs, ventilator management, maybe some of the hemodynamic monitoring that we do in the ICU setting.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
So, one year RN experience. If you are a nurse practitioner, who’s transitioning from say family or primary care to the adult gero acute care NP, I do a separate, what we call a gap analysis, of those students, looking to see what may be transferred in as credits from your former program to the program at Duquesne. So, that’s just kind of a general overview of what the role is of an adult gero acute care NP compared to some of the other NP functions or NP specialties.
Speaker 1:
Great, thanks for going over all those specifics. And I want to jump into a little bit more programmatic information about our programs here at Duquesne University. So we offer both online programs for an MSN and adult gerontology acute care NP, but also a post-master’s certificate for those who already have their MSN, whether that is within another specialty itself, but a smaller program to complete that’s still online. So if you just want to go over just those programs. I know I have some highlights here of the times to complete credit hours and clinical hours, but definitely discuss what students can expect to learn in these programs, clinical requirements and expectations, preceptor sites and things with that. And I have some questions over here of those things specifically, but just wanted to highlight a little bit of those before we jump into some of those questions.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Sure. Great. So the master of science and nursing for the adult gero acute care NP takes three years to complete, it’s 42 credits their total of 12 courses. Of those 12 courses four courses are specific to the adult Gero acute care NP. Those are the four clinical management courses. The other courses are what we call the three PS, advanced physical assessment, advanced pharmacology and advanced pathophysiology. And then there’s a global health. And I’m trying to remember what the other one is that makes up the 12, but all total it’s required to have 750 clinical precepted hours. Now out of those precepted hours, some of those hours are what is spent in what we call the campus week, where it is an online program, but the students do come to the campus, two different semesters for hands-on skill training. And some of that hands-on training includes like in the second clinical management course, we focus on airway management and the skill of intubation is covered there.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
We also have arterial line insertion on that first campus week. The second campus week, which again, counts for clinical hours. Each of those are 25 hours. So it’s two and a half days that they will spend each semester on campus that second campus week, we will cover chest tube insertion, [inaudible 00:20:54] and central line insertions, and really excited because we have some state of the art equipment coming to assist students with these procedures so they can get ample practice. And they are faculty guided insertion procedures so that when they leave the program, they have basic skills in these specific procedures that are required for the adult gero acute care NP. For the post-master’s certificate, again, I look at each post-master’s candidate that’s coming in. So whether you have a master’s in education, or you are a prior nurse practitioner, I look at what can we possibly give you credit for, for advanced placement standing?
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
So just one broad example, if you’re a practicing NP and you have prescriptive authority, most likely you will not be repeating advanced pharmacology, advanced patho or advanced physical assessment, but those are looked at on a case by case basis because you won’t have to take, in most instances, all of those essential fundamental courses, the program takes about two and a half years to complete, but the clinical hour requirement remains the same. And it’s just a total of nine courses. This program is different than the other NP programs. One because of the course content, the clinical management courses, as well as the on campus week procedures that are performed, I didn’t mention, but we also do suturing. So all of those are in the online or on campus, campus weeks where you have hands-on practice. We’re also incorporating an ultrasound program and the students will have a computer based ultrasound program that I’m incorporating into the program.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
And they will also have a hands-on module at home with a probe that will enable them to do some of the ultrasound techniques that they will need to at least have fundamental knowledge on as a new AGACNP. First, where students can complete the required clinical hours, we have two large healthcare systems in Pittsburgh. We have the Allegheny Health Network and UPMC University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that our sites for clinical experiences for students, there’s also several other smaller healthcare systems in the area that we will tap into as well. As far as clinical, I am going to want the students to get as much time in the intensive care unit setting as possible, because this is where they’ll be able to utilize most of their skills in managing physiologically, unstable patients. And they’ll be more likely to get exposure to the procedures that they will be doing as an acute care NP. Did I miss anything?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I just want to spend another quick minute on clinical and preceptor sites, just because for our students who are located all across the country and not just within our physical Pittsburgh location. And I know you had mentioned a couple of places where they can think to look to complete their preceptor sites, but maybe just some other examples of good placements that they can work through those hours for, in their home states that are outside of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Yes. And that’s a great question. And again, we do have students that are out of state and often these candidates for the program are working registered nurses. So they usually have contacts with either physicians or nurse practitioners who are practicing in those acute care settings. And it never is too early to start looking for preceptors, and exploring with individuals, if they would be interested in precepting you, when you’re at that point in your program. Preceptor assignments or preceptors shortages, it’s evident all over the country and in all the NP specialties. So, if the students can start their networking, now letting people know they’re enrolling in programs and starting to maybe get a list of people that would be potential. For the adult gero acute care NPs, of course I would like their preceptors to be adult gero acute care NPs, but compared to other NP specialties, this is a fairly new role, meaning that it’s only been around about 20 years. So you may have a FNP or primary care who’s functioning in an acute care setting, performing that role.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
I will look at those individually, but I do not exclude them as potential preceptors. And I do allow the students to look and do time in specialty areas. So maybe you want to focus on oncology, you’re an oncology RN, you want to, as an acute care NP, work in the oncology area or palliative care, want to make sure that you get opportunities in those areas as well. I don’t have a preference on facility size. Usually the larger medical centers are where you have the intensive care units that might do some more of the invasive line monitoring, than maybe a smaller rural facility, but sometimes going to a smaller rural facility, you don’t have med students and fellows and interns who are also vying for those procedures. So, you may have a better opportunity and a better experience in a smaller healthcare system or smaller hospital as well.
Speaker 1:
Great. Well, I think it’s wonderful for students to hear that Duquesne, we’re flexible on the preceptor locations, especially for this program, because as you said, not as fully developed as maybe some of our other programs and preceptor sites like for FNP, but also Duquesne we do offer several resources to help our students find clinical preceptor sites and have clinical coordinators in place to help that. So not completely alone in that sense, we do offer that [crosstalk 00:28:24].
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
…and they are great for helping get the contracting done that’s needed between the facility as well as the preceptor. So we are very fortunate that our coordinators have that experience with the FNP and it easily transfers to helping us find and secure preceptors and facilities for the adult gero’s as well.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. Great point. They definitely handle a lot of the paperwork, which can be a little bit of a pain. So they have a lot of experience for all of our other programs there. All right. So I know you did discuss a little bit in depth of some background that you need before entering into our programs, having that at least a year of acute care practice under your belt, being a registered nurse and looking at a gap analysis for anybody who’s transferring from some other NP specialties, but I did want to go over just some more specifics for our programs in general of the admissions requirements for both our MSN and PMC programs, and also the admissions process itself and what is needed to be included with your application.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Right. So we like to have a GPA of 3.04 undergraduate courses, and we also require that they maintain a B average throughout the program as well. And that’s both for the MSN, as well as the post-master’s requirement. Admission process, a CV, they do a professional goals statement sitting why Duquesne’s program and Duquesne University is of particular interest to them. How does that particularly meet their needs. Official grade transcripts, and then two references. One is academic and one is professional. And that professional is somebody who evaluates you in a supervisory role. So those are all being paperwork that we’d look at when considering admission for students.
Speaker 1:
Wonderful. So is there any other items you wish to discuss about our programs, whether it is admissions requirements, the process for being admitted, or just anything else that you wish to share about our programs today?
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Well, I’m just very excited to we’re offering a program for adult gero acute care NPs, part of the problem with meeting the demand that is out there for this group of nurse practitioners is not having enough programs available for students to enroll in, to receive the education and training they need for that. It’s an exciting role for nursing. It’s, the program itself, as I’m developing the content and getting some experts to present content as well, I’m excited about that, but I’m also excited about what we offer in the skills lab and simulation for students coming here. I think we have some unique opportunities that may not be available in all acute care NP programs throughout the country. So I’m very excited about that. And Duquesne is very supportive of this new program.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we are all very excited about these new programs that launched last year and our post-master’s certificate launching earlier this year. So just very excited to have these programs added to our long running list of other programs. As you can see here for all different sorts of entry points, including MSN post-master’s certificate and doctor nursing practice programs. So I’m going to wrap it up for today and thank you so much for your time of discussing your background, your expertise, but also the programs here at Duquesne Dr. Dillon. And if anyone else has any other questions, or if you’re looking for more information about our adult gerontology programs or other various online programs listed here that Duquesne have to offer, you can contact one of our enrollment advisors today by the number below or visiting our website. So thanks again for your time today, Dr. Dillon.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
Thank you. And I’m also available if students have more specific questions or they just want to get a different feel for the program from the program directors perspective, I’m open to emails and phone conversations as well. Thank you.
Speaker 1:
Wonderful. Thanks so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Dr. Deborah Dillon:
You too. Bye, bye.