Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has developed a new post-master’s educational program for family nurse practitioners who work in either emergency care or urgent care settings and who desire to become certified as Emergency Nurse Practitioners (ENP-C).
The new two-semester program started in August 2016 for FNP-certified applicants in emergency care. A total of four courses (two each semester) provide focused didactic and clinical knowledge to safely care for patients in emergency care settings.
The school is offering the post-master certification to help family nurse practitioners prepare for a new board certification, the ENP-C, which will launch in 2017.
In order to take the certification exam, licensed and certified family nurse practitioners must have a minimum of 2,000 direct, emergency care practice hours in the past five years plus either 100 hours of continuing emergency care education, completion of an academic emergency care graduate or post-graduate nurse practitioner program, or completion of an approved emergency fellowship program.
“Our new program offers academic emergency care nurse practitioner education at the post-graduate level and will prepare graduates for board eligibility as ENP-C,” said Jennifer Wilbeck, DNP, APRN-BC, CEN, associate professor of Nursing and specialty director, Emergency Nurse Practitioner Program. “The program will use online and distance technologies and techniques so students can take the courses without having to relocate or give up employment.”
Fall courses are Pathology and Collaborative Management in Emergency and Critical Care and Trauma, Emergency and Critical Care Clinical I. Spring courses are Concepts in Emergency Nursing and Trauma, Emergency and Critical Care Clinical II.