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The School of Nursing is the first in the region to offer an on-line nurse practitioner degree. Now students can become nurse practitioners from the living room, dining room or den via an outreach educational site on the World Wide Web.
It is the first comprehensive distance learning project at Saint Louis University and may be the only such program in nursing education nationally that offers four entire nurse practitioner programs on-line: adult, family, gerontological and pediatric.
"I commend those faculty who designed this innovation in nursing education," said Dr. Joan Hrubetz, dean of the School of Nursing. "In the future, as our history is reflected upon, this methodology surely will be seen as one of the most significant events in the life of the School of Nursing."
Saint Louis University's on-campus master's degree program for nurse practitioners is designed to reach a broad base of regional and national students. The School of Nursing established the new virtual distance education outreach site on the World Wide Web to respond to the nationwide demand for nurse practitioners. People who have difficulty attending the university gain access because the site removes geographical barriers and connects students from a national pool into a virtual classroom.
"We developed the program to help meet the nation's demand for primary health care practitioners," said Dr. Andrew C. Mills, assistant professor and coordinator of the distance learning program. "Research has shown that nurse practitioners are safe and effective in providing patient care. Our program gives nurses the opportunity to obtain graduate nursing education from a leading university despite their geographic location. Moreover, nurses can log-in on their computers at their convenience, regardless of work or family schedules."
By maximizing the use of multimedia, the program is designed to be much more than electronic page-turning. Courses are drawn from both print media and virtual media. Clinical cases will be presented on-line using text, recorded audio and video streaming files, graphic images and on-line testing. Cases will be discussed on-line using a client-server World Wide Web conferencing system.
The program offers students a novel orientation to distance education: Faculty introduce courses via on-line video presentations so that students can view their virtual instructors. Students learn more about courses through pre-recorded files that offer an on-screen, visual guide accompanied by an audio description.
All admission and enrollment requirements will be identical for students whether they receive their education on campus or via distance learning. In addition, all graduate-program requirements will be the same regardless of the educational format.
Initially, the virtual program will be structured as a part-time course of study spanning approximately four calendar years. After all courses are developed on-line, a student's study plan can be accelerated. The distance education program differs from correspondence courses in that students progress through the curriculum on a semester basis, in a structured manner similar to on-campus students.
In addition to e-mail and on-line discussion, faculty will phone students to discuss their progress and see if they are comfortable with the virtual method of learning. Also, two on-campus residency periods, each lasting one week, will be required of all distance learning nurse practitioner students.
"The university classroom will not disappear in the near future," Mills said. "However, distance learning opens opportunities and increases students' choices."
For more information about the program, call 577-8915.