Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) and Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) - Virtual Information Session

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We're gonna give everybody just a moment to get logged in and make sure that everyone can hear. We're happy that you are joining us. If you are in our live audience, for those of you who are joining us, uh, and watching our recording, thank you for taking a few minutes to spend with us to watch our recording as well. We'll just give everybody just a second to get logged in.

Alright.

Great. It looks like folks are all set, so we'll go ahead and get started. So good afternoon or happy whatever time it is that you are watching this. My name is Jen Radwanski and I am the Associate Director for Graduate Admissions here at Stockton University. I am joined by my amazing colleagues in our graduate nursing programs, both our Master of Science in Nursing as well as our Doctor of Nursing Practice program, so our MSN and our DMP programs. And we're here to tell you a little bit more about how.

Maybe if you're interested in joining us, how you can do so and tell you a little bit more about what this program has to offer. So just a couple of things before we begin. If you are watching this live, there is a chat feature on the right hand side of your screen. Please feel free to utilize that for any additional questions you may have. We would encourage you to hold those questions till the end though, because more than likely we're going to cover all questions you have in our presentation today, but if we don't, then we would be happy to answer those for you.

If you are watching this virtually pre recorded, we will also share with both our live and our recorded audience our contact information for any questions you have to follow up to if you are live. The other thing I would share with you as far as putting questions into the chat, we are because we are recording this and we may be sharing this in public forums. Please don't put any questions that are very personal nature. We are very happy to help with those, but we'll do that offline on a one-on-one basis with each of you to make sure that those questions do get answered in a more.

Private setting. So without further ado, I am going to turn things over to our program chairs for our nursing programs, Doctor Ludin and Dr. Roofin, who are here to tell you a little bit more. So go ahead and take it away my friends.

Hello, my name is Leah, uh, Doctor Luden, umm, I am the chair of the MSN program and this is Doctor Ruffin.

All right, we're gonna start off our presentation. First, of course, we like to tell you what our mission is here at Stockton. The mission of the Graduate Nursing program is to develop competent nurse practitioners, or advanced registered nurses to practice in a culturally diverse and rapidly evolving world. We want to make sure that you're prepared for the environment that we're gonna put you out into.

The University and graduate nursing program remain responsive to community needs. That means we take a look at our community and see what needs, and we make sure that we prepare our nurse practitioners for that need. Independent experimental learning fosters students to choose their education and further their professional endeavors. And lastly, we embrace the University's guiding principles, vision, values, and the strategic plan of Stockton.

Next, let's go a little bit of how Stockton developed their nursing program, a little bit about the history of the program. So in 1975 it was the RN to BSM program and then they furthered on in 1998 to the adult MP. 2004 we started our FNP program, that's our family nurse practitioner track. Then we had a pre licensure in 2006. Then we went on to get our DMP in 2014. We also developed an accelerated BSN.

So those are students who already have a bachelor's maybe in another concentration and say hey, nursing is the field for me. We started doing that in 2016, 2018 we did our post for our BSN, 2021 we also had our post for DMP. And then currently we are doing our other tracks in 2023 also for MSN and other post degrees.

All right now, our broad career options that we have here at Stockton's Nurse Bacteria's work in a variety of settings to assess, diagnose and treat acute and chronic illnesses.

For our FMP, our family nurse practitioner or AGPCMPS, those are adult general nurse practitioner tracks practice primary and primary care, urgent care centers, clinic, private homes, insurance related wellnesses programs and many more. Just to give you an example, I am a family nurse practitioner that has been working in emergency medicine for the last 19 years and I'm also currently working in addiction medicine. So there's a ray of different opportunities as a.

Nurse practitioner or as an adult, Gerald nurse practitioner.

All right, I'm gonna let Raffin take over this part. He's gonna talk more in detail about the program.

OK, you're good. Yeah. Leah, we can't hear you. Just FYI.

There we go. I had my mic muted. I'm so sorry. Forget about some of these little tabs that you put on there. There you go.

All right, so the graduate tracks of nursing tracks that we have, we have the adult gyro primary care, umm, and that's our MSN and our postmaster certificates. Umm, and then we have our family nurse practitioner and that could be straight through. You can come in with your finishing your VSN and then you can go straight through or if you already have maybe adult Gerald and you want to come in and get your umm certificate for, to be able to sit eligible for the boards for the FNP can come in that way as well. And then we have our.

Doctor of nursing practice and we have it postn post MSN tracks as well and we have those opportunities for a student. And as Doctor Ruffin has said, we're in the works of producing more tracks such as an acute care, such as psych and leadership tracks as well. Those are in the works and hopefully they'll be off soon, within the next couple of years. We are accredited.

Which is very important. You want to make sure you go to a school that is accredited.

We're nationally recognized according to the CCNE, and that is the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and then the APN certification allergy is the AAMP or the ANCC. Those are the only two accredited bodies that you can. And by sitting, I'm going to our university, you can sit for either one of those.

Alright, next and then this furthers on, we will put a little link into the chat about the MSN curriculum and the DMP curriculum and you can go right on to the Stockton website. There goes Jen, look at that. I love it. It's right there already in the chat ready for you. And you could click right on that link right there and it will show you and if you click on that link, it will show that you have the adult Jarrow primary care for either 33 months or you'll have the adult GRO for 24 months and same thing for the.

It's either 24 months or 33 months and then if you also look in that DMP, it would be also the same as that. You can take a look at those.

Alright, next, let's talk about our clinical hours, right, because you're going to need to have clinical hours in order to go through the program. So for our adult Jarrow and also our is 75750 clinical hours and this is a 46 credit and that's either through the 24 or 33 months. Now if you do the F&P, it's gonna be a little bit more time, right? Because you, you have a larger population you're gonna have to deal with, you're gonna have to do a little bit more of that Women's Health and a little bit more of those little guys, right?

Pediatric population, so you're going to have 770 hours with 50 credits and that's either through the 33 or the 20 for a month. And I know a lot of people are going to have a lot of questions about those clinical practice hours in regards to how do I set up my hours, who do I go to, what do I do? What normally what we do is we try to help facilitate a lot of that. It also depends on who your employer is. If you're coming from that local area with the land of care, they will provide you the clinical sites. We contact them, they tell us who you'll be going with.

And then you would go through their facility if you're not a landed care employee and you live up north or out West or or even down South if you're in like the Cape May County areas, we usually try to find you clinical sites around the local area where you live. And, but we also ask for your help as well. You know, you know those local community a little bit better than maybe than we do. Maybe you can contact your employer, you work with even your primary doctor or either.

Nurse practitioners or physicians in the community.

And we usually have a large contract with a lot of surrounding community partners or stakeholders, we call those. So if you know, if you have someone in mind, we always tell you, hey, go out and let us know who you would like and we will help facilitate that as well. But we try to ensure that every single student has a clinical site.

All right, going on to our own campus intensive, our Oskies.

Excuse me, I love this. This is one of my favorite times of the year. We hold an OSKI starting in Doctor Ladder. Let me know if correct me if I'm wrong. We even start them as soon as our health assessment, correct? It's kind of like a mini kind of Oski. And we hold those out every semester. It's usually about two days. And So what we do during this is kind of simulation. Well, it is a simulation of we have actors come in, you will go in, you would assess.

You were diagnosed, you would write up your soap Nope, just as if you were out in clinical and this helps us see that where your strengths and weaknesses are. And this also helps you to become more comfortable in the clinical sites when you go out. We also during these intensive, we also have guest lectures that come in and we look at during the trends throughout the last couple of years in the field for nurse practitioner. What becomes more important for you to learn in the last couple of years? I think everyone has heard about the.

Pandemic, right? So we've been giving more lectures now because you no longer need an ex waiver to prescribe these medicated assisted treatment for your opiate addictive patients. We've been giving now more lectures on how to start Suboxone, what to do if you have a pregnant patient that has an opiate addiction. We have also been seeing the deprescribing a lot of our elderly population have too much medication on board. So we've been incorporating that into our lectures. We've been incorporating how to do hepatitis management. So we look throughout.

The trends to see what really needs that our nurse practitioners needs, and we focus that also on our intensive. I really love this. I think me and Doctor Ladder have so much fun with this, trying to get it up and running. And we and our students, we've all had great feedback. And I have to say, Doctor Lehrer, the one who's instilled this, so I give him all the credit for that. I'm just riding off his coattails with that one. Next one. This one's my baby, I gotta say that.

I love this one. This is also our Suturing and wound closure workshop. This is a lot of fun. The students love it and I love it because as being emergency medicine for so long, this is what I do all day. I love suturing. And we also have Doctor Walton that comes in. He's one of our adjunct professors. He is a specialty in Durham. He comes in and he teaches about how to do.

Biopsy punctures, different kinds of wound closures, difficulty closures. Students love this. They really, really get a kick out of this. I mean, we supply all the material. We do all of that for you. All you have to do is show up and have fun. All right, our next one, I'll let Doctor Ruffin go. And this one, this one's more of his specialty.

OK.

I also like to say that we ensure that we try to help you. We do have things in our intentives such umm, our pre and post testing. So you would get tested before and that is in umm adult one. And we see where you're at or see where some of your strengths are, where you need to work at. And then we retest you again at the end. It's almost your practice exam like taking your boards and we sell you, We tell you, hey, this is where you guys are week out. This is where and that really.

You to ensure that you go when it's time to take your boards, you pass and then we do this for all of our students and this seems to help and that's was installed during the intensive. So we really, really I can't I need another adjective than really, but really try to ensure that our students pass. We I can't say that enough of how me and Doctor Luna are so passionate about what we do and we teach and we spend a lot of our time on our students.

That they become great nurse practitioners because I look at it as who's going to be taking care of my loved ones? Who's going to be taking care of me. Even though I know I look young, I'm not, I'm getting older. And we want to make sure that you guys are the best nurses, nurse practitioners you can be. And we're passionate, we love it. We love our field. So I just wanted to put that in there. I know that was a little overkill, but I, I am, we are passionate about what we do. We love, we love our jobs.

And I always have to say when people ask me what's the reason I should attend Stockton, Why should anybody consider a graduate program at Stockton? That without question or hesitation, the first thing I tell them is our faculty, our faculty care. They are present. They, they want our students to succeed. You are not just a number. They, they, they know you as a student. Umm. And, and I think that that's one of our biggest strengths here at Stockton. And I think that from what you just shared that that definitely shows that as well. So I'll add that anecdote as.

From the admissions side. So with that being said, after all, you've you've heard all of this information about the program. How how do you apply? How do you come join us, right? That's the next question that that you have. So I'm going to take just a couple of moments and share with you the logistics of how you can go about applying. This is all on the website as well. So you don't need to take, you know, feverish notes. The details are both on the MSN and the DNP page links that I posted in the chat for everyone to be able to see.

So you'll be starting there. If you are a current student, you do have an option for direct entry if you meet the requirements for that.

So if you're moving from the MSN to the DNP, we would encourage you to search up the direct entry options to see if you meet that requirement, which is going to be a shorter application because you are already here and enrolled at Stockton. If you are an undergraduate student who is completing the BSN program, you would also be eligible for that to move into the MSN program. And we'd be happy to chat with you about the logistics of how that works in an individual session too. So next.

If you're doing our general application, is there is a $50 application fee? We frequently get asked is there a fee waiver. If you happen to be eligible for a fee waiver, we will let you know that.

And we will send that fee waiver to you. Otherwise, there is a $50 fee. By putting the $50 fee in, it's going to then ask you to hit the submit button. You're not submitting your application for review. You're submitting your application to complete it. Your application will not submit to be reviewed until all of your materials are loaded. So not to worry, you're going to put that fee or the fee waiver in and hit the submit button again. That's going to take you to the next part of the process. What will happen at that point? You will then be able.

To see your essay, every program that we have has a specific essay and you'll be able to see that essay prompt. Once you move to that submit phase, you'll have a number of things that you'll have to load yourself, so we'll talk about those first. The very first one being that essay which will load in APDF format. We encourage you not to use AI in any form. You need to write that yourself, and you should also make sure that you proofread it to make sure it is grammatically correct. I know things that we probably shouldn't have to say, but we do want to throw it out there to make sure you're aware.

The next thing that you'll be able to load is your proof of licensure. So you'll need to share with us your your license. You can just take a screenshot, take a picture, scan it however you'd like to load either APDF or PNG and JPG file. But you're able to load that to your document or to your application yourself. Those documents you'll also need to load your CPR certificate. So you can again do that through a photo or.

A.

Screenshot whatever the case may be and load that as well.

The next piece are your two letters of recommendation. So these need to be individuals who can recommend you on a professional or academic basis, people who can speak to your ability to be academically successful within this program or are working in the nursing profession themselves and have supervised you in that field. Even if you have a wonderful next door neighbor that you've known for 20 years and they can speak to your personal credibility, unfortunately that's not the recommendation.

Recommendation we're looking for again.

We're looking for a professional and academically related letter of recommendation for both of these. So with how that works, it's all electronic. When you submit your application, you're going to put the name, e-mail address, and title of the individual who you'd like to be recommending you and we it will automatically send them all the materials that they need to complete and to upload. What we do ask is that you have a conversation with them prior to adding their name to your application. Let them know that they should be expecting it. And the other thing we would recommend is to copy and paste.

Their e-mail address into your application. Don't hand type it. Don't go with chance of accidentally hitting. Yesterday I saw one that had two periods in it instead of one. It was the first name, period, last name and they put two in there and the recommender never got it. So please copy and paste the e-mail address to ensure accuracy and it that it goes to them and then again reminding them that if they're receiving it once you've completed it so it doesn't go to their junk mail or that they forget. Let them also know your deadline.

That's that's critical as well. All of the deadlines depending on how you're applying for which term.

Umm, and which program are all listed on our application, uh, processes the admission criteria tab of the websites I posted there. Uh, so next, uh, is a current CV or resume. Again, you can load that yourself. You'll do that in APDF format. Umm, And the really cool thing about the application, uh, system that we use is when you log in, it is very user friendly. You're gonna see a red X or a green check mark. The green check mark means that it's complete and that part of your application is done.

The red check or the red X means that it is still pending. Umm, so that's how you're able to log in and maintain the status of your own application. We get phone calls all the time. Where am I at with my application? And the first thing we're gonna tell you is log in and check your, check your red XS and check your green check boxes. Umm, so that's important. So last part of things, and this is probably the one that's a little bit most technical, is having your official transcript sent to us. We do need to receive transcripts from every institution you've attended. So if you have an associate, a bachelor's.

A masters, you know, whatever the case may be, we need to receive transcripts from any two or four year institution where you took college level credits. We recommend sending those to us electronically. You can have them mailed to us, but we find that the electronic way is the best way we get it much quicker. You get a receipt once they've been received so you know that it's you know in progress and it's just the easiest way so you can either depending on what.

Institution utilizes to send transcripts. Some of them have a drop down where you can select Stockton and others ask you to input an e-mail specifically. If you want to have it sent specifically to us, you can send it to gradschool@stockton.edu and again, that's under the admissions criteria of the website we have posted in the chat, but please make sure you have those sent a timely fashion. That's probably the thing that takes the longest period of time and that unfortunately as a student you don't have control over.

You know, but again, if you do it electronically, we're receiving those in less than 5 business days, which is a really nice turn around.

So we we encourage you to do that.

Uh, next, uh, just these are the deadlines that we were talking about. So there are different deadlines depending on which program you are looking at and which start time you are looking at. There's not a lot of wiggle room with that. And that's very intentional because of the course, you know, progress that you have to maintain in the curriculum that we discussed. Umm, so we encourage you to look at that, uh, very, very specifically.

Umm and uh, that again is also on the websites in the links that we posted.

As well Doctor Lude and Dr. Roofing, anything I missed as far as the admission process that you'd like me to add?

No, I think you covered it. I I don't have any.

Awesome. Thank you.

All right. Would you both like to touch on just a brief bit about alumni and where some of your alumni are? And then we'll give folks a chance to if you at this time as we go over this, if you have any questions, please feel free to start typing those in the chat. But if you could tell us a little bit more about your alumni, that would be great.

Our alumni are working in different various areas, mostly in our community and they're, I believe all of them are practicing as advanced practice providers at APNA. Lot of them are in primary care, some are in cardiology, some went on to Endo, some endocrinology. We've had some that have gone into addictions. I know I've seen some through Atlanticare that has done that. So they are.

We have 100% employment rate. All of them always get jobs within less than six months I believe of after graduation.

Umm, correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor Ruffin.

Yeah. So we have a great employment rate.

Yes, umm, most of the employers are in our community, umm, say that their nurse practitioners can go right off the ground running. Of course you'll have orientation, but a lot of them feel very confident and very secure in their practice very early on due to the strenuous curriculum that we have here at Stockton that umm, me and Doctor Ruffin really and so and the rest of our faculty and still as well. So we have great employment rates.

The success rates.

Great. All right, so now we'll take a couple of moments and just check and see if there's any additional questions we have from our audience. We thank you all so much for for being with us today for watching this either live or watching our recording. You'll notice the chat feature for our live audience is on the right hand side. Please feel free to drop any questions in there. Again, as you're doing that, I will also highlight our contact information. So if you have any questions that are of a more personal nature or you think of.

After this session, you know, take a quick screenshot of this, but also our information is all on the MSN and DMP website, which is part of the Graduate Admissions office where I am. And any one of my teammates here in our office would be more than happy to assist you as well as the program chairs for both the MSN and the DNP program.

And with that, I am not seeing any additional questions. So it looks like we covered everything. So I want to just thank you both for joining us as our presenters today. Doctor Luden, Dr. Ruffin, thanks to our audience again for being here today.

And for watching our recording. And I hope that everyone has a wonderful day and we hope to see you here at Stockton soon. Take care, everybody.

OK. Thank you.