CONnections - University of Kentucky

Graduate programsThink againD.N.P. students on path to leadership in quality of careKaren Mutsch, D.N.P. Clinical Practice Leadership Track“If you think you’re an expert in something, think twice.”Karen Mutsch, one of the College’s Doctor of NursingPractice (D.N.P.) students, thought she really knew her stuff.After all, she’s worked 30 years for the same large hospital,considered a “heart hospital.”After earning her master’s degree in nursingadministration and education, she workedat the bedside, doing case management withcardiac patients. “A lot of what I do is carecoordination, discharge patients, get patientsready for the transition to home or anotherplace, whether that be rehab, or home with home care.”With all her experience, she’s still had many enlighteningencounters with myriad experts in cardiology from aroundthe United States, who collectively have taught Mutsch andher fellow classmates how to approach questions andproblems in new ways.She says, “If somebody proposes a problem, I’m going tolook at it differently. I’m going to tear it apart and put it backtogether altogether differently than the way I would have inthe past. I’m a more deductive thinker now.”UK’s D.N.P. ProgramMutsch hopes to someday have a nursing faculty position– and she knows that means needing a doctorate to teach in agraduate program. A plethora of nursing doctoral programsare out there, but after being away from working on a unitfor a 14-year stint in staff development, she felt like a practicedegree was the way she wanted to go.She found it with UK’s D.N.P. Program, which offers twotracks: Clinical Practice Leadership and Executive Management.Mutsch, who plans to graduate during 2005, is a memberof the first class of D.N.P. students who began the program inthe fall of 2001.This semester, she’s working at a large, suburban hospitalon the telemetry unit, implementing the capstone project forher degree. The project is focused on improving heart failurepatients’ self-management at home. Heart failure is thenumber one Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) which coststhe hospital, the payor, or the patient a lot of money.The project’s work actually begins with increasing nurses’knowledge. Sometimes, Mutsch says, it seems that nurses areso inundated with information that telling them, “we have toget our core measures up (quality indicators for JointCommission),” falls on deaf ears. She says her job is to increaseawareness of evidence-based practices. Putting thoseprocesses into place should translate into helping to improvepatients’ self-management outcomes at home.Making her wayWhile working toward her doctorate, Mutsch had theopportunity to work in a heart failure clinic at an out-of-stateuniversity. It took her away from the comfortable environmentof the hospital she’s worked for for so long. But, she says, “It’sproved to me that I don’t need to be in the same place. I canmake my way in other organizations.”(Some fellow classmates spent time at a teaching hospital inEngland, for clinical practica experiences with experts there,and to evaluate implementation of evidence-based practice inthe United Kingdom.)Is Mutsch ready for what might be waiting for a nurse witha clinical practice doctorate? She says, “I certainly think thisdegree will open a lot of doors for me.” The hospital whereshe currently works is a teaching hospital but it’s not affiliateda14CONnections Spring 2005