The Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) acquires a broad base of knowledge and experience to provide direct health care services to people of all ages for the purposes of health promotion, health protection, disease prevention, and management of common acute and chronic illnesses. The FNP focuses on care of patients and families and functions primarily in ambulatory care settings. The population in primary care family practice includes newborns, infants, children, adolescents, pregnant and postpartum women, adults and the elderly. There are a total of 24 credit hours in the specialty with 630 direct clinical hours.
The FNP graduate is prepared to:
- Synthesize knowledge from nursing theories, the humanities, and evidence-based scientific clinical guidelines to guide assessment of health status for patients of all ages.
- Demonstrate advanced practice clinical decision making, integrating critical thinking, to interpret patient and diagnostic test data and formulate differential diagnoses and a plan of care for patients and families across the lifespan.
- Design and implement a mutually agreed upon management plan and therapeutic interventions with patients and families across the lifespan.
- Evaluate and revise the documented management plan based on patient/family findings, problems and expected outcomes of treatment.
- Apply family assessment methodologies and research findings to improve and evaluate the care of patients and families across the lifespan.
- Advocate for patients and families to provide cost-effective, culturally competent, ethical, quality care in and across health care settings.
- Model responsibility for continued professional development, integrity, accountability, competence and credentialing as a family nurse practitioner.
| Curriculum Post Masters Family Nurse Practitioner | ||
| Clinical Core Courses | ||
| NURS 617 Advanced Concepts of Pathophysiology | 3 credit hours | |
| NURS 618 Advanced Health Assessment | 3 credit hours | |
| NURS 622 Clinical Pharmacology for Advanced Nursing Practice | 3 credit hours | |
| Total Clinical Hours | 9 credit hours | |
| Family Nurse Practitioner Specialty Courses | ||
| NURS 654 Primary Care Nursing of Families I | 5 credit hours | |
| NURS 655 Primary Care Nursing of Families II | 5 credit hours | |
| NURS 656 Family Nurse Practitioner Practicum | 5 credit hours | |
| Total Specialty Hours | 15 credit hours | |
Are you an out-of-state student interested in pursuing a distance learning degree at USI? Check your availability.
The MSN and Post MSN online programs are limited to working with certain states in the U.S. only. Moving into a state not recognized by the graduate nursing program will lead to inability to continue in MSN coursework. The exception to this is active military status.
Non-native speakers of English must meet English proficiency requirements as established by the USI Center for International Programs.
The baccalaureate degree in nursing, master's degree in nursing, Doctor of Nursing Practice and post-graduate APRN certificate at the University of Southern Indiana are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (http://www.aacn.nche.edu/ccne-accreditation).
We offer admission into the program once a year and work with our students to provide a Plan of Study that allows for timely graduation and achievement of their goals.
Fall and spring courses are 16 weeks in length; summer course offerings are 10 weeks long.
There are no campus visits required.
Additional information about the University may be found on our About USI website. We also welcome student visits on campus that are arranged through the USI Office of Admission.