Assignment: Independent Study

Assignment: Independent Study

As the landscape of healthcare changes, there is an increased need for NPs to obtain further education and emerge as health- care leaders. NP students have options related to which degree to pursue, including a Master of Science in Nursing or a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). NPs must have the ability to dis- seminate research and clinical information to improve health outcomes, leading to a better understanding of healthcare man- agement (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2015; National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties [NONPF], 2016). For these reasons, it is recommended that all NPs obtain a DNP as the entry-level educational preparation for practice (AACN, 2015; NONPF, 2016).

Several challenges face the nursing profession in providing education for nurses pursuing advanced degrees. These include the difficulty in meeting educational needs for the number of people seeking advanced nursing degrees, a national nursing faculty shortage, and a lack of available clinical placement sites and preceptors. These educational problems have the potential to create an unstable environment for future NPs (AACN, 2015; Fitzgerald, Kantrowitz-Gordon, Katz, & Hirsch, 2012).

As of 2017, the United States had 373 NP academic programs (Fang, Li, Stauffer, & Trautman, 2016) that educate NPs to care for at least one age-specific population. Subspecialty programs, such as oncology, are uncommon in graduate NP programs, and the majority of ONPs do not attend a program with a formal oncology concentration. A survey conducted by the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) reported that only 16% of NPs had com- pleted a program with a primary focus in oncology (Nevidjon et al., 2010). To that point, most NPs achieve oncology expertise by means of on-the-job training by physician or NP colleagues, or by independent study (Hollis & McMenamin, 2014).

Traditional ONP orientation typically involves an assigned preceptor who observes and mentors the clinical practice of the NP, with or without prepared classroom instruction, most

commonly over a three- to six-month period.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.