UT Health San Antonio’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree has been ranked 67th in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of 2023 Best Nursing Schools: Doctor of Nursing Practice, released March 31.
The rankings are based on 14 indicators grouped into four broad categories that include quality assessment (40%), faculty resources (26.25%), DNP student selectivity and program size (18.75%), and research activity (15%). The scores are based on data collected on surveys from fall 2021 to early 2022. The data was standardized and weighted for the 2023 report, often used by prospective students to find the programs that fit them best.
“At UT Health San Antonio School of Nursing, we are doing everything it takes to develop diverse nurse leaders to improve health and health care through education, research, practice and community engagement. Our vision is to educate the next generation of nurses to promote health as an act of social justice and who will mirror the communities that they will serve,” said School of Nursing Dean Eileen T. Breslin, PhD, RN, FAAN.
The School of Nursing launched its post-Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)-to-DNP program in 2012. As national standards progressed, the School of Nursing embraced and implemented important changes intended to address the national and regional nursing shortage and to improve the education of nurses.
“We transitioned away from the master’s degree in 2019 and began a new Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN)-to-DNP program. This program is designed for nurses who already hold a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Nurses in the program can choose from advanced-practice tracks including Adult Gerontology-Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, Family Nurse Practitioner, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner-Primary Care, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner or Public Health,” said Sara Gill, PhD, RN, FAAN, associate dean of graduate programs.
The school has the potential of graduating 48 students this summer in the first cohort of full-time BSN-to-DNP students who began the program in 2019. There are 56 students projected to graduate from the BSN-to-DNP program in summer 2023.
“UT Health San Antonio continues to be the leading school of choice in South Texas for nursing education. In addition to our current nurse practitioner tracks, we look forward to offering a new DNP Nurse Anesthesia track very soon. Several other nurse practitioner specialization tracks are being considered,” Dr. Gill said.
The School of Nursing is a public school with 107 full-time faculty members and a total graduate nursing enrollment of 248. The application fee is $120 for U.S. residents.
The School of Nursing tied with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla., MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston and the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla.