Dr. Sharon Simon, Assistant Professor, Director Family Nurse Practitioner Program
ICPH Site, 540-542-6233, ssimon@su.edu

The School of Nursing offers an Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Certificate for RNs who already hold a Master of Science in Nursing degree. The FNP Certificate is designed to provide the nurse with the necessary knowledge, skills, values, meanings and experiences to assume the role of a primary health care provider in a variety of clinical settings. Didactic and clinical course content focus on assessment and management of health promotion and maintenance strategies, risk reduction, common acute and chronic alterations in health status for individuals and families across the lifespan and role development. Clinical experiences are in a wide variety of ambulatory and community rural and medically underserved health care settings appropriate to the family nurse practitioner track.

The FNP Certificate is designed to meet the needs of the MSN-prepared RN with the philosophy that post graduate students are highly motivated adult learners who learn independently as well as in structured settings. Course work can be completed in 15 months of full-time study with summer admission. Clinical experiences are arranged with individual preceptors in surrounding communities. Approximately 780 clock hours are spent in faculty or preceptor-supervised settings. Graduates of the FNP Certificate program are eligible to take the national certification exam given by either the American Nurses Credentialing Center or the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Prerequisites, in addition to the MSN, include three credits of advanced pathophysiology, three credits of advanced pharmacology, and four credits of an advanced physical assessment course. All courses must be at the 500 level or above.

Graduates of the FNP program will be able to:

• Synthesize evidence-based practice, clinical guidelines and clinical judgment to improve the quality of clinical practice in diverse populations with consideration for social determinants of health.

• Apply ethical, cultural, legal and social factors that influence access, equity, quality and cost-effectiveness to advance nursing practice.

• Demonstrate, through competency-based evaluation, the delivery, management, health policy process and leadership of advanced practice nursing and population health in primary care settings.

• Create interprofessional dialogues and utilize healthcare technologies to optimize clinical decision making and evidence-based practice to support and strengthen patient outcomes.

• Construct a sustainable professional family nurse practitioner identity and practice that reflects compassionate, holistic and wellness-focused patient-centered care for diverse populations.