Reply To: The Discouragement Received From Nurse Colleagues When Pursuing DNP

[Anastasia G Paolini]

Hi Avery,

I can relate to having received negative responses from co-workers regarding my decision to return to school for my DNP degree. Although mine have been primarily due to the fact that I am a rather new nurse. I had a faculty member in my senior year of nursing school tell my entire class one day that we should not even think about getting our advanced degree without 5 years of nursing experience. I found this kind of upsetting because I believe that everyone is different including how they learn and advance. Plus, there are direct entry DNP programs in which one can totally bypass BSN. I have always wanted to be an NP and right after becoming a nurse applied to DNP FNP school part-time which is a 5 year program because I will need to stay employed full time to provide for my family. I have never been happier in the program and am confident in my ability to become an amazing DNP. I am sorry that you are experiencing this, right now I pick and choose who I tell that I am in school. I try to avoid negative responses and continue to get through my program. As nurses we should encourage co-workers to get their advanced degree and provide positive reactions because it helps the nursing profession in general to grow. We are also in such need of providers in our country it is contributing to helping in this deficit.