WMU should offer Ph.D. for nursing
By Hassan Al-Momani
Western Herald
Nursing has become one of the most important fields for students looking for jobs in the U.S.
There is an increasing demand of nurses nowadays in our country because of the establishment of new hospitals and of the immigration of American nurses overseas.
Additionally, nursing is considered as one of the highly-paid jobs in the country, and perhaps even the nation.
Based on the importance of a nursing major, Western Michigan University should offer a Ph.D. program in nursing for its students.
WMU has done a right step by establishing an undergraduate program in medicine.
This paves the way for our university because it is attracting students who could potentially enrich the university with financial resources to overcome its economic crisis.
We have now an M.A. program in nursing at WMU but it is not enough to provide the job market with potential academic members for the medical field.
There is a great potential to offer a Ph.D. program in nursing at WMU now because we have an great number of faculty members in the department of nursing who can teach the coursework.
Additionally, some of the faculty members in the department of medicine will be able to teach some Ph.D. courses in nursing, so this program will be linked to the medicine program and will become complementary to it.
The benefit WMU can get from offering a Ph.D. program in nursing is great.
Our university will benefit financially from admitting a lot of local and international students in this major.
There is now a great demand of the Ph.D. holders in nursing in most countries of the world.
Thus, there are a lot of countries which want to send their students to get their Ph.D. degree in nursing from the U.S.
Additionally, a Ph.D. program in nursing will provide the academic job market in America with a lot of Ph.D. holders in nursing who can find teaching and research jobs easily because of the high demand of this major.
Thus, our university will acquire a great reputation among the American academic institutions which will raise the rank of our university among other academic institutions.
Finally, it would be a great idea for our university to offer a Ph.D. program in nursing because the graduates of this major will not find difficulties in finding jobs after graduation.
Also, our university will help to pave the way for more investment in the health sector in Michigan and in the U.S.
Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=17948
Posted by HeraldAdmin
on Jun 27 2010. Filed under Opinion.
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Your opinion reflects some confusion and misinformation about nursing at WMU. You have mixed your arguments around nursing and medicine, first of all. They are not the same. The fact that WMU is working to establish a medical school – which is a graduate level program (M.D.) is a new frontier.And we certainly want it to be successful and of high quality.
But that has nothing to do with nursing education and practice. We have a MSN degree in nursing at WMU with major tracts in nursing administration and nursing education. To develop a PhD program in any field requires a faculty prepared at the PhD level who have significant nursing research – preferably funded. WMU’s program is relatively young, established in 1994. The MSN was established in 2006. Although highly supportive of quality nursing education, WMU is currently not in the market to \bite off more than we can chew\. I believe that our faculty would not agree that we are currently ready for such an undertaking at this time.
A nurse could have a PhD, and people still wouldn’t call him or her “doctor.”