Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program Overviews

Amanda:

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining Duquesne University’s online nursing webinar. Today we’re going to be discussing the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program, as well as the adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner program. My name is Amanda Shunning. I’m one of the enrollment advisors here at Duquesne and I am on the line here with my colleague Jamella Lewis.

Jamella Lewis :

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Jamella Lewis. I’m one of the enrollment advisors here. And as my colleague Amanda stated, we’ll be talking today a little bit more about the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program and the adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner. Today joining us, we have Dr. Lucas who’s going to just give us a little bit of insight into these two programs. And Dr. Lucas, if you don’t mind, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Denis Lucas:

Sure. My name is Denise Lucas and I’ve been at Duquesne since 2010 and have done a number of different things at the school of nursing. I started as a faculty member. I was, for a brief period, the program director for the FNP program. And since 2016. I have been the chair of the Advanced Practice Programs, which consists of all of the NP tracks, which are SNP and these two new tracks and our DNP program, and I provide oversight to those and work with the faculty who direct those programs and the faculty who teach in those programs. In addition, I also teach and, for a good few years now, I have really been responsible for the advanced pharmacology course.

Jamella Lewis :

Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing that. Now let’s jump right into the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program. Now this MSN is one of our newer programs for the fall 2020 school year. So this program, we’re expecting it to take three years to complete, so that’s about nine semesters. The curriculum itself is 44 credit hours or 15 courses. Now, Dr. Lucas, if you wouldn’t mind, go ahead, could you tell me a little bit more about what is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner? What do they do?

Denis Lucas:

Well, they can do quite a number of things. Number one, this is all psychiatric mental health NP programs are considered across the lifespan, meaning they take care of people from children to older adults, so anywhere in that continuum so they can provide care to a great variety of people. They provide care in a variety of venues, they may have offices, they may have clinics, they may be in schools, they may be in community based health centers, they may be doing tele-health, but they often provide different types of therapies to patients. Perhaps it’s individual therapy, family therapy, group therapy. They diagnose and treat psychiatric mental health conditions. They manage medications, they manage lab values. They may often work in teams with other therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, a variety of individuals that contribute to mental health care. But often, they are a very significant member of the team with their ability to diagnose and treat and manage patients. We may also find them working with the opioid crisis, the addiction crisis and those types of settings in hospitals, community and places all along.

Denis Lucas:

We have a variety of people who may be considering this. “I’d like to be a nurse practitioner. Is this type of NP program right for me?” Sometimes it may help if you have prior nursing experience in some of these areas, but don’t limit yourself to that. If you were seriously thinking about this, if you feel that you have a calling to help people who have different problems that requires some relationship building, requires getting to know them one on one, this may be a very intriguing opportunity for you. No matter what your nursing background is, I’m going to suggest that you probably have dealt with people along the continuum who have suffered from depression, who’ve been victims of abuse, who have had opioid disorders, et cetera. So this may be something that you really want to give serious consideration to if this is what you feel your calling is.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you for that, Dr. Lucas-

Denis Lucas:

Does that help?

Jamella Lewis :

Yep, that absolutely helps. Thank you for that. And just to expand on that a little bit more, can you explain the difference between being a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and a psychiatrist?

Denis Lucas:

Well, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor, so they have completed four years of college, have gone to medical school and have done residencies and perhaps fellowships in psychiatric medicine. A psychiatric nurse practitioner is of course a nurse with a solid nursing background, at least a bachelor’s degree, who is currently earning a master’s degree as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. You will complete core coursework and then you will complete a number of pertinent courses related to the specific … I’m sorry, specifics of this program, so that you are able to diagnose, treat and manage medications as well.

Denis Lucas:

We come at this from two perspectives, whether you’re a psychiatrist or a psychiatric mental health NP with different underpinnings and different backgrounds, but it’s like a fork in the road that, again, meets at the end of the road. So we’ve taken different pathways to make similar contributions to patient care. So hopefully that helps distinguish between the two.

Jamella Lewis :

I would definitely say so and I appreciate you sharing that insight there. Now, what can students expect to learn in this program specifically, especially with this being a newer curriculum for us? What can they expect to see and learn a little bit more about as they go through this process?

Denis Lucas:

Well, we feel very excited about this particular program and curriculum. Among our faculty at Duquesne who helped design this, we are fortunate to have some psychiatric clinical nurse specialists among our faculty who still practice. The difference between a clinical nurse specialist and a nurse practitioner tends to be the prescribing piece. So these individuals do not prescribe, but they were instrumental in helping design some of the courses such as we have a course called serious mental illness, and they were incredible in helping with design some of the therapy components because all students who complete these programs must be exposed and prepared to do … They call it three therapy modalities, meaning individual group and family therapy. So those are all some of the takeaways that students would come with this very exciting curriculum, in addition to some content and pieces about hat happens to the brain with addiction, how do we manage that, how do we take care of people across the lifespan? Not all nurses have a great deal of pediatric nursing experience, but nurses in this program would have to have some exposure to children. For many of us, that’s very new. So that is something very exciting that this also offers.

Denis Lucas:

At Duquesne, we also have a forensic program that’s been longstanding, very well thought of across the United States. And I think that this particular program marries very well with our forensic program in terms of some of that content. And I anticipate that we will have students in this psychiatric NP program who get some exposure to our forensic program and perhaps some prior forensic students who feel that this psychiatric NP program is a good fit for them and they will return back to school with us.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you so much. Now, this program also has 550 clinical hours associated with it, can you talk a little bit about where students can do their clinical hours?

Denis Lucas:

Sure. So I think some of this will depend upon where students live and what is available in your area. And again, mental health services are provided in a variety of venues. And I think for some students, once they get to examine their community a little closer, they’ll be surprised at what is out there. So you can consider behavioral health centers, you can consider psychiatric offices, psychiatrists, inpatient outpatient practices, some hospitals and facilities still offer inpatient psychiatric services. There are for profit facilities, there are nonprofit facilities, we have domestic violence shelters and much community outreach due to opioids and funding in different communities where they are trying to engage those patients. So there are a myriad number of places. And I think another population that we should think about closely are veterans. So if you have a VA facility, perhaps that is also an opportunity so that we don’t lose sight of those patients who often need us just as well.

Jamella Lewis :

I couldn’t agree more. And I appreciate you sharing a little bit more detail on where students can expect to do clinicals as well as start to consider where they might want to do clinicals [crosstalk 00:11:09] so they consider this program. Now, with the campus residencies, we have our physical assessment course and then we also have the psychiatric mental health clinical for advanced practice visits, what can students expect to do with their time on campus?

Denis Lucas:

Good question. So with your first residency in the physical assessment course, it is a three-day event when all the students in your particular class will come to campus. It’s usually a very exciting time for students and us because it just means so much for us to get to actually meet students on a face to face venue. It’s exceptionally well structured and it really is sort of an opportunity to show what you’ve learned. There’s a lot of teaching that goes on in very small groups. We have a lot of clinical experts who come and work with us and then we have the opportunity, as the time goes on, for return demonstrations and evaluations of specific skills and examination techniques, how to use an otoscope, how to use an ophthalmic scope, how do we do some specialty exams, review of terminology.

Denis Lucas:

We know for a patient with abdominal pain, there are 10 or 15 abdominal signs that you would look for, what do all of those names mean? How do you do that? How do you do a thorough neurologic exam? So a lot of that gets covered in a teaching-learning environment in that assessment course.

Denis Lucas:

Then we ask students to come to campus one other time once they enter their psychiatric NP clinical courses. And I believe that campus week will focus on some interviewing skills, some of these therapy modalities and things like that that probably will involve, again, more teaching learning demonstration. I anticipate a lot of faculty being hands on deck, working with students in groups and things like that. So that when we send you out to these clinical areas, you have a certain skillset under your belt where you understand what’s going on and that you’re able to participate, whether it’s from behind a wall or it’s actually in the group or with an individual, that you are comfortable participating and you’re prepared to participate.

Jamella Lewis :

Excellent. I certainly feel like those are very valuable to students to be able to get some more hands on supervised time, especially with that being in one of the earlier clinical rotations before they really get knee deep in their clinicals and they can have a moment to feel a little bit more confidence in their skillset before they-

Denis Lucas:

Yeah. So we try to be very thoughtful with the timing of that.

Jamella Lewis :

Yeah. Absolutely. Now, I really appreciate you sharing all that information about the clinicals, about campus residencies, I think now’s the time to swing into our admissions requirements and then our application process as well. So for right now, for what we’re looking at for these psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program is that students must have a bachelor’s of science in nursing from an accredited college or university or with at least a 3.0 GPA. They must also have at least one year of full time work experience as a registered nurse prior to beginning specialty or clinical coursework. And they must also have an unencumbered RN license. Last but not least, we also ask that students have completed an undergraduate level statistics course with a C or higher.

Jamella Lewis :

Now as far as the admissions process goes, we would like to see resumes or curriculum by pace from all of our students. Two, electronically submitted references. Ideally, one should be academic and one should be professional. We’d also like to see transcripts, official transcripts from all previously attended institutions. And then last but not least is the goal statement. So traditionally goal statements are two pages in length, double-spaced, just really elaborating about your experience as a nurse, why you want to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and why you’re interested in attending here at Duquesne. Is there any more insight that you could provide Dr. Lucas in terms of what students should include in that goal statement?

Denis Lucas:

Sure. So we feel the goal statement really helps us know that the student understands, for lack of a better phrase, what they’re getting themselves into. So I’ll give you an example of this. If you are really interested in the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program, your goal statement should focus on that. Sometimes we see a mismatch. So I might have somebody who’s interested in this program, but they talk about being a primary care provider, so that would be somebody who wanted to be a family nurse practitioner. So the goal statement really should match what the program is going to give you through your time with us and match what the certification exam, which exists at the end of all of these programs, will deem that you’re prepared for. So I would look to see a goal statement that talks about your interests in behavioral medicine, what brought you to this. Sometimes students have life-changing events that bring them to these programs. Others, it’s just a calling or it’s just something that they’re particularly interested in, and what brought you here and what you think you might do with this when you’re done with the program.

Denis Lucas:

So if you can focus a goal statement that way, it really helps us understand that you know what this program is going to do for you because we don’t want you to get a certain portion into the program and say, this isn’t what I thought it was. So sometimes we can catch that early on in the goal statement.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you for that, Dr. Lucas. I think that definitely helps. A lot of times students find themselves just being stuck on exactly what to include in the goal statements, so I think that gives them a lot of insight as to where to begin and what to include in there. We’re going to shift gears a little bit. We also offer what’s called our adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner program, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that program. That program takes three years to complete. It’s 42 credit hours, 12 courses. Can you explain what is gerontology and how does acute care entail with it?

Denis Lucas:

Yes, so this NP track is sort of a reconceptualization of NP tracks that used to be separate. So there used to be an acute care nurse practitioner track and there used to be a gerontology nurse practitioner track not that long ago. And forward-thinking people really looked at what we’re preparing nurse practitioners to do and how we could align some of these, so this was sort of a combined effort. And now the correct term is acute care adult gerontology nurse practitioner. And it’s like the psych mental health and the family nurse practitioner where they take care of individuals across the lifespan. This program prepares graduates to care for young adults through older adults. And sometimes there are some things that depend upon where the age limit starts, it might be 13, it might be 15 years old, it might be 18 years old. It depends on a variety of things where a student would go to work, but I want students considering this to realize they would probably start to care for older adolescents, young adults through older adults. And we often see these people in acute care settings. So think about hospitals, long term acute care centers where we have patients who are spending a good amount of time in a facility but yet requiring very acute care, perhaps it’s requiring a ventilator, nutrition, very complex care.

Denis Lucas:

We also see these nurse practitioners working in very high intensity internal medicine practices where they are transitioning patients from hospitals or long term acute care centers back into their home. So this is primarily where these individuals spend their time. They are taught very high level skill sets such as invasive procedures, line and tube insertions, intubation, they manage complex medications and drips, they manage complex diagnostics. And they do this, again, in a certain age group, young adults, older adolescents through the oldest individual.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you so much for expanding on that. Another question that we have is, what can students really expect to learn in this program? Again, this is another one of our newer tracks, so what can they expect to learn? What can they expect to hear from faculty? What can they really expect to expand their practice with throughout the program?

Denis Lucas:

Sure, sure. So these students will come away with a very high volume skill sets. They will be able to manage patients who are critically ill or acutely ill. They will be able to interpret very complex diagnostic information related to the patient. They may be responsible for inserting lines such as central lines, arterial lines, chest tubes. They will complete some diagnostics, for example, they will learn the use of ultrasound. They will manage a patient’s care often as they transition from one level of care to another. So perhaps a patient begins in an emergency room or emergency department and they end up in a critical care unit and then perhaps they move to a step down and then a lesser acute medical surgical floor or perhaps to another facility. They may be working in that facility that’s receiving this patient or they may be in the acute care facility that’s transitioning this patient. So it is a very good amount of high level, high complex thinking and decision-making along with being able to complete very high level procedures.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you so much for that, Dr. Lucas. Now this program also entails 750 clinical hours, can you explain to those students where they can do these clinical hours at?

Denis Lucas:

Yes. So we want your clinical hours to coincide with the population that you’re taking care of, so we would like students to get some exposure to individuals from those young adults through older adults. You may want to consider hospitals, whether it’s a community hospital or a high level trauma teaching hospital. All of that would be appropriate, long term acute care facilities that might be in your community, managing patients on ventilators, managing patients on complex medication or treatment regimens. All of those would be perfectly appropriate, along with some exposure to an internal medicine practice so that you can see what it’s like to care for these patients at home. You may have patients who are home bound, who are ventilator dependent, who require a lot of things to sustain themselves, but yet you’re managing them from the community perspective. The other place that would be appropriate to do some time that I did not state and just realized would be an emergency department, also would be appropriate.

Jamella Lewis :

Excellent. Thank you for elaborating on that. And then with this program, very similarly to our nurse practitioner programs, we have our campuses for the physical assessment course, but then we also have two more visits in addition to that, alongside with some of the adult gerontology course. So what can students expect to do with these campuses that are more focused on furthering their practice as a nurse practitioner?

Denis Lucas:

Sure. So just like in the other explanation for the psych, with the advanced health assessment course, that remains the same for these students as well. It’s learning skills. It’s a teaching learning demonstration type environment. But this program has two additional campus visits embedded in that. And we see in these visits, again, multiple faculty available where students are learning to do some of these procedures and these high risks things that these nurse practitioners do such as learning to use ultrasound, identifying anatomy, inserting lines, how to intubate. Skills like that where you’re able to do them with some degree of simulation and hands on in a lab setting with faculty oversight and availability to work with you and teach you to do these so that when you get into these clinical settings, none of this is foreign to you. You may not jump in and do the first one, but you can say to your preceptor, “I have certainly practiced this. Let me tell you how I would approach this” and then gain the ability to practice some of your skills. But we want you to go out there with a good underpinning and understanding of what it means and how to do it and when it’s indicated.

Denis Lucas:

So those would take place over two different visits, and the particular things would be appropriately placed for each visit. What you would do would be related to also part of the coursework that you’re currently in with those particular visits.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you so much for that. And just to expand on those visits, are those looking like the physical assessment, those are about two and a half days, would that be the same for the two additional days? Okay.

Denis Lucas:

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yes, they would both be three days each. Thanks for bringing that up.

Jamella Lewis :

You’re welcome. Now, a lot of times students will say, “Well, I want to do family nurse practitioner, but I also want to do adult gerontology acute care.” What advice would you have for a student who is looking at both of the programs as a way that they can really self-reflect and figure out which one they’re most interested in.

Denis Lucas:

So couple of things that I would say about that. And I would encourage anybody to do their own homework to really flesh out what the particular program does. Who is it aimed to care for? What does certification look like? What does the job opportunity look like? Where do these people go to work? We are happy, as are you, to talk to any student who is having difficulty trying to decide between whichever population focus. Family NP students take care of people across the life span, but they provide primary care. They are not the ones who are inserting lines and making these high level decisions in a critical care unit. Adult-Gerontology acute care NPS are. It doesn’t mean that they can’t do primary care, they just tend to do it on a much more intense level, but they do not care for children or infants. So sometimes there’s some population things that factor into that.

Denis Lucas:

The other opportunity is, and I don’t know if this is the right place to discuss this, and edit this out if you like, but what we also see are students who return for a postmaster certificate. They have completed an NP track, they are licensed, certified, working out there, have a master’s degree or a doctoral degree, but yet would like to earn certification in another NP track, so they return. And their coursework is scaled back and they earn what … They don’t earn a second graduate degree, but they earn what is called a post-masters certificate or a postgraduate certificate. So we see that very often and we’re seeing it even more frequently. And we’re happy to talk to any student about population differences, what they’re interested in, where they feel their heart is calling them and how we can help them get there.

Jamella Lewis :

Wonderful. And I feel like that’s so important for students to hear as well, that it is something where we want to help support them in whatever their passion is and wherever the field of nursing leads them. So it’s always good to be reminded of the fact that we have resources available to help you get there and that we’re willing to work with students to make sure that they’re doing what’s best for them in their practice as a nurse. So I really appreciate you, again, expanding on that. I find that all that information about clinical rotations and the residencies are very helpful, especially with the decision making process too.

Jamella Lewis :

So to lean into the next slide, which will be about our admissions requirements, coming in from a nursing background, we want students to have their BSN from an accredited college or university, very similar to our other nurse practitioner programs. You need to have at least a 3.0 GPA, as well as have taken a undergraduate level statistics course and passed that with a C or higher. We also ask that students have an unencumbered nursing license, and that’s their registered nurses license, and then that they have at least one year of full time work experience as an RN prior to registration in clinical or specialty classes.

Jamella Lewis :

Now as far as the admissions process goes, again, we want your resume or your curriculum vitae, whatever you have on hand, two electronically submitted letters, reference all your official transcripts, and then of course the goal statement. And with this goal statement, again falling in tune with the same acquirements as the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner goal statement, two pages, double spaced, really detailing more about previous work experience, your goals as a nurse and perhaps even why you want to attend here at Duquesne.

Jamella Lewis :

Now, is there anything specific to the adult gerontology acute care realm that students should try to make sure they include in the goal statement to put forth a stronger application?

Denis Lucas:

I think, again, just focusing on what this degree means and what it’s going to do for you and what you plan to do with it. If you have some acute care experience, if you have worked in a critical care unit, if you have worked in an emergency department, if you have certifications such as the CCRN, certified emergency nurse, et cetera, we will see some of that on your CV, but feel free to talk about how that part of your professional life is pushing you towards this program. That just makes your professional goal statement stronger.

Jamella Lewis :

Thank you. And if you are a student that is looking to get started or would like some more information into either a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program or even the adult gerontology practitioner program, feel free to connect with either Amanda or myself, or you can reach out to your schedule enrollment advisor. And our phone number is (888) 305-5749. I do want to thank you again, Dr. Lucas for taking the time just to expand on these two programs that we’re offering and giving some more insight to our potential students as they look to expand their education, as well as their career, and hopefully enroll with us here at Duquesne University.

Denis Lucas:

Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to talk about our two new tracks. We’re very excited to get them started.