The Family Nurse Practitioner program prepares students to provide primary care to patients across the entire age spectrum from pediatric through geriatric. Family Nurse Practitioners work in a variety of settings including ambulatory clinics (free-standing, hospitals-based, mobile), school-based clinics, and long-term care facilities.

Our program prepares graduates with the clinical skills needed to practice as an autonomous family nurse practitioner including: obtaining medical histories, performing physical examinations, making diagnoses, developing treatment plans; safely prescribing medications, managing acute and chronic conditions, ordering, performing, and interpreting diagnostic studies, as well as managing minor traumatic injuries. The program prepares graduates for the full scope of family practice including prenatal care, child and adolescent care, women’s health, adult health and geriatric health. Additionally, the DNP-FNP student graduates with the skills to assess, develop and analyze the effectiveness of patient-centered QI projects. The DNP-FNP program provides the skills to assess how local/national health care policies affect patient care and develop policies that can provide positive patient outcomes.

The program emphasizes care that is interdisciplinary, collaborative, and culturally appropriate. The program of study provides students with in-depth knowledge and clinical experiences in such areas as: advanced health and physical assessment, advanced pharmacology and pathophysiology, health promotion, social determinants of health, acute and chronic illness management, role development as a primary care clinician, and reproductive and prenatal care. This course work is combined with over 1,000 hours of supervised clinical practicum experiences in which students will build and strengthen their skills as an FNP. Clinical experiences occur at a variety of clinical settings including federally qualified health centers, private practices, school-based clinics, tribal clinics, rural clinics. Additionally, each FNP student will complete a 4-week clinical placement at one of the OHSU rural campuses. The rural campus clinical is an opportunity for students to gain valuable intensive clinical and inter professional experiences in rural communities. Graduates will be able to demonstrate all doctoral level FNP competencies and may apply for national certification. At the completion of the OHSU School of Nursing Family Nurse Practitioner program, the graduates will demonstrate the following competencies in addition to the DNP and Advanced Practice student learning outcomes:

1. Apply critical thinking to assess, diagnose, and manage acute and chronic conditions while applying safe, evidence-based, and personcentered care within the scope of FNP practice.
2. Demonstrate ethical comportment and professional communication to establish collaborative relationships with patients and colleagues.
3. Demonstrate holistic, evidence- based practice to assess and intervene at both the individual and population levels to promote wellness and manage disease
4. Evaluate systems-level innovation, leadership and advocacy to improve access to healthcare services and reduce disparities among underserved communities.
5. Demonstrate effective and efficient use of information technologies and other strategies to communicate within health care.
6. Develop a reflective practice to establish a foundation for lifelong learning, and sustainable professional development.