Mission
The Mission of the Uniformed Services University's Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Program is to educate safe, competent, and professional Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners who are able to practice independently within the Federal healthcare system.
Philosophy
The Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program (DNP Track) is dedicated to preparing graduate nurses for advanced clinical practice, the critical appraisal and translation of evidence into practice, and leadership in the advanced practice nursing role across healthcare systems. The rigorous curriculum stresses psychiatric-mental health care across the lifespan that is consistent with current standards of practice for the psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner.
Design
The PMHNP DNP track is a 36 month - full time program that refines critical thinking skills through didactics, clinical simulation, and clinical practice. Our curriculum stresses care across the lifespan and operationally relevant psychiatric-mental health care foundationally built upon evidenced based practice and systems orientation. Didactic learning is cemented into knowledge within the clinical practice environment at military and Federal facilities supervised by experienced nurse practitioner and other behavioral health providers. The first year of clinical exposure is executed exclusively via simulation. The second year of clinical exposure utilizes both simulation and direct patient care opportunities. In the third year, students continue to build upon clinical skills at a service specific phase II clinical site.
The program was built to achieve goals of the AACN 2021 Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education, and meets the requirements of the 2022 National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties’ (NONPF) Nurse Practitioner Role Core Competencies, and the draft 2023 NONPF specialty competencies for Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioners.
Across the 3-year program, each graduate will acquire over 1800 direct practice hours, will create and implement a scholarly inquiry project addressing a healthcare system’s issue and will create a personal portfolio demonstrating how they have achieved each of the 10 Essentials. Program faculty are experienced nurse practitioners and educators.