Family Nurse Practitioner MSN and Post Master’s Certificate

The Family Nurse Practitioner combines skills in primary care with community assessment, intervention, and management skills of community health nursing. It emphasizes health promotion, disease prevention, and the management of common acute and chronic illnesses across the lifespan. Students complete 645 hours of supervised clinical practice with nurse practitioners and primary care physicians. Clinical placements are arranged for students by faculty and experiences are tailored to the individual student's goals and program objectives.

Through weekly synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences as well as individually assigned clinical rotations in various primary care and specialty settings, the student will learn the critical elements involved in providing primary care for patients throughout the life span. The educational experiences are led by doctorally prepared nurses, including skills labs, simulation experiences, and lectures given by experts in the field.

The MSN is for BSN prepared students and the PMSN certificate is for students who have obtained a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) in another specialty. By completing this program, students are eligible to take the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) exam or the American Academy for Nurse Practitioner (AANP) certification examination for the Family Nurse Practitioner certification. The program meets the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty's curriculum guidelines. The curriculum also includes coursework required by the Texas Board of Nursing (BON) to be qualified as an Advanced Practice Nurse (APN).

A gap analysis of previous master’s level courses will be completed for applicants to the FNP PMSN certificate program upon admission to determine exact course requirements to complete this program.