Josephine R. Granner, BSN, RN, PhD candidate at University of Michigan Nursing, said she is pursuing a PhD in nursing because she wants to effect change at a public level.
Being PhD-prepared and conducting research would allow her to have that public health level of influence. But for Granner, learning about the options in PhD education and what to expect from a degree program was difficult and much less accessible than information about other nursing degree programs.
Granner, who coauthored the paper, “Barriers for BSN students to pursue a doctorate in nursing and recommendations to address them: A scoping review,” published in Nursing Outlook, also did not know about funding options for pursuing a PhD in nursing. She applied for her current fellowship at the last minute because, initially, she didn’t realize the importance of pursuing specific funding opportunities.
Lack of information on programs and financial support options are just two of the barriers nurses can run into when deciding on whether to pursue a PhD or DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice), which is a popular doctorate in nursing. In 2020 alone, 9,158 nurses graduated with the DNP compared to 759 who graduated with a PhD in nursing, according to the Campaign for Action.
More than 64% of today’s nursing workforce is prepared at the baccalaureate and higher-degree level, but only 1.2% have a DNP degree and 0.6% a PhD, according to American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) statistics. The issue is that nursing needs a strong pipeline of nurse researchers and nursing faculty — jobs often held by PhD-prepared nurses.
“Nurse scientists play an indispensable role in developing new knowledge to advance the health of patients, families, and communities. Yet PhD nurse enrollment has significantly dropped, and many later-career nurse scientists are nearing retirement,” according to authors of a 2019 paper published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship.
Today’s PhD nurse pipeline is not sufficient to replace the PhD-prepared faculty that are retiring, according to Granner.
