Rutgers Nursing Magazine - Summer 2021

The School of Nursing is rising to address that shortage. In addition to its flagship four-year Primary Care PNP program, it also offers a post-master’s certificate in pediatric primary care for nurse practitioners. And this spring, the school launched two new pediatrics programs, a Dual Primary/Acute Care PNP doctor of nursing practice degree—the only one in the state of New Jersey—and a Pediatric Acute Care Post-Master’s Certificate. Quinn has also been able to secure two grants, one from the Wells Fargo/Edward W. & Stella C. Van Houten Memorial Fund to support scholarships for students in the Pediatric Acute Care Post-Master’s Certificate program and the other, from the New Jersey Health Foundation, to fund the development of a pediat- ric simulation suite. The suite will offer the first pediatric-sized task trainers at the university and will allow PNP students and others in the School of Nursing to practice highly specialized procedures like spinal taps and umbilical line insertions. It’s this level of attention to detail that makes the school’s PNP programs so competitive. The flagship primary care PNP program, for instance, offers a comprehensive curriculum com- prising health promotion and the treatment of mild, complex, and chronic illnesses among children. It also requires a mini- mum of 585 clinical hours designed to expose students to a wide variety of clinical settings. (The new dual PNP program, beginning in fall 2021, will require 900 clinical hours.) For Otto-Ryan, who received her accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Rutgers in 2016 and worked as a “There is a forecasted critical shortage, over the next 10 years, for PNPs,” says Margaret Quinn, specialty director of the PNP program at Rutgers School of Nursing, “especially in rural and underserved areas.” Margaret Quinn, DNP, RN, CPNP, CNE, Clinical Associate Professor and Specialty Director for the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program.