School Focuses on Advanced Degrees as the Future of Nursing Education
The University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS) is celebrating 75 years of educational excellence in 2023. This legacy is built on a long-held vision of better health for all.
With this anniversary comes exciting news about educational programs the School has created to improve the health of the community while carrying the nursing profession into the future.
The School’s educational journey started in 1948 with a handful of students taking Nursing 101 courses in UM’s temporary post-war classrooms and gaining clinical experience at Jackson Memorial Hospital and other sites. Over the next 75 years, South Florida’s first collegiate nursing program went on to pioneer and perfect many forward-thinking academic and clinical programs, adapting rapidly to trends in simulation, online learning, telehealth nursing, and virtual reality.
These firsts have included being the first nursing school awarded an NIH Comprehensive Research Center grant (P60) to launch the Center of Excellence for Health Disparities Research: El Centro in 2007 (renewed 2012-2017), implementing one of the nation’s first executive-style M.S.N. to D.N.P. degree programs in 2009, introducing South Florida’s first Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree program in 2011, hosting the first U.S. appearance of the Pan American Nursing Research Colloquium in 2012 and again in 2022, launching Florida’s first BSN-DNP degree program for nurse anesthetists in 2014, and being one of the first nursing schools anywhere in the world to build out a fully dedicated hospital replica for the express purpose of health care simulation education and research in 2017, among others.
Today SONHS has close to 1,500 students enrolled in a dozen accredited degree programs taught by more than 50 full-time faculty with a range of expertise that includes nursing, public health, epidemiology, statistics, medicine, psychology, and behavioral health. The School has national and international designations in everything from nursing and public health to simulation. Students participate in cutting-edge research opportunities at home and abroad and are supported by world-class buildings and educational resources.
The School has made strides in interventions designed to improve and expand health equity and community outreach. These advances have been greatly accelerated by prestigious research partners like the World Health Organization — which also turned 75 in 2023 — as well as the National Institutes of Health, and legions of clinical preceptors, community partners, major health systems, and generous donors.
In alignment with national efforts to graduate more nurse practitioners and doctorally prepared nurses, SONHS has introduced pathways for BSN graduates to go directly on to earn DNP degrees in three new clinical specialty tracks: the acute care, family practice, and adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner tracks. The School has been offering a three-year BSN to DNP degree specializing in anesthesia for almost a decade; today that program has grown to become a highly regarded, selective program advancing the practice of educating top nurse anesthetists with innovative hands-on simulation strategies.
Recognizing the need to empower and develop more nurse leaders, SONHS joined forces with UM’s prestigious Miami Herbert Business School to create a formalized roadmap to nurse leadership. The Master of Science in Leadership (MSL) / Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) joint degree program is a unique curriculum that blends the best resources of two stellar graduate-level programs. Tailored to nurse leaders, the curriculum covers organizational behavior techniques, management skills, negotiation expertise, marketing, healthcare finance, ethics, practice improvement, HR issues such as translational science, health policy, diversity, technology, and much more.
By educating the next generation of nursing professionals and educators, SONHS continues to play a key role in combatting the worldwide nursing shortage. Graduates go on to serve their communities as clinicians, researchers, administrators, and leaders who shape the future of health care and health policy in our region.
Stronger than ever in its 75th year, SONHS offers nurses many opportunities at all levels to become the future of nursing by deepening their knowledge and expanding their scope of practice.
For more information, visit sonhs.miami.edu/academics.
