The Master of Science (MS) Degree with a Major in Nursing and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner specialization (MS/PNP) develops leadership and practice skills necessary to shape nursing practice in a dynamic, complex, and globally interdependent healthcare system.

The program is designed to educate nurses who can provide competent, culturally sensitive, cost-effective, accessible, and efficient care with an emphasis on rural underserved populations.

The graduate program offers an innovative approach to advanced practice education by integrating expertise from other disciplines, (medicine, pharmacy, gerontology, audiology, speech pathology, social work, physical and occupational therapy).

The MS/PNP program features:

• Multidisciplinary study in a 630-hour preceptorship.
• Access to practice two nurse-managed clinics.
• Research opportunities on the Purdue West Lafayette campus.
• Use of distance learning technology as a component of the Purdue Graduate Nursing Consortium.
• Practice opportunities at Purdue's nurse-managed clinics.
• Global perspectives through ongoing projects in Ecuador, Nicaragua, and South Africa, and clinical preceptorships with diverse populations in the U.S., specifically the growing Hispanic population in rural Indiana and the Native American population through the Navajo Nation project in Kayenta, Arizona.

For more information, call (765) 494-9248.

To apply online, visit this website.

Graduates will be eligible to take the PNP national certification exam offered either by the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board or the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Program graduates are expected to achieve the outcomes listed below.

Master of Science Program Goals

Upon successful completion of the MS, the graduate will be able to:

1. Evaluate client and family responses to health and illness as a basis for the promotion, restoration, and maintenance of health and functional abilities and the prevention of illness.
2. Synthesize theory and research in the management of the care of individuals and families in a specialized area of practice.
3. Integrate rural and urban nursing and non-nursing theorists into practice.
4. Use nursing interventions based on knowledge of the interrelationship among person, environment, health, and nursing.
5. Demonstrate role competence as an Advanced Practice Nurse.
6. Provide leadership in affecting positive changes in professional, social, political, and ethical situations to advance nursing, healthcare, and health policy.
7. Evaluate nursing and health systems effectiveness based on outcomes.
8. Demonstrate competencies as an Advanced Practice Nurse through successfully meeting national standards for certification.