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American Journal of Critical Care. 2005;14: 472
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LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

To the Editors:

As the husband of a nurse, your editorial about the doctor of nursing practice (DNP) makes me worry, and not just that I’ll hear about it at the dinner table for years to come. Nursing as a profession faces difficulties that are much more fundamental than a few more initials after a nurse’s name. There are those who believe that professional nursing is in danger of marginalization, if not outright extinction. Yet, instead of a grass-roots movement to solidify the place of professional nursing in the healthcare firmament, there is discussion about a new doctorate degree for nurses. Many situations and questions leap to my mind, but before I can consider them, I am compelled to get past an image of "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

If nurses seek a new doctorate in an effort to gain respect from physicians and other healthcare providers, they are not likely to get that respect. Any lack of respect regarding the nursing profession probably isn’t based on initials, and therefore adding initials won’t address the problem. Changing the perceptions of not only healthcare professionals but also of society takes time, work, and unity of purpose.

Until nurses can speak with one voice, until they can provide the data that prove their worth, and until the word "nurse" means similar things to all people, problems of respect and questions about place in the scheme won’t be answered. Push to have nurses as professors in medical schools, by all means. Work to show medical students and interns that nurses are professional members of the team, absolutely. Simply making up a new degree in an effort to gain professional respect opens the profession up to charges of, well, making up a new degree in an effort to gain professional respect.

Nursing isn’t, and never has been, about "bean counting" or making money. Nursing is about patient care, first and foremost, and providing the best possible care should be every nurse’s goal. I just don’t see how the DNP gets you there.

David Blackman
Chesapeake, Va





This Article
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