Question: I've been an RN for 10 years and earned my RN-BSN on campus. To advance to a management position at my hospital I need a masters degree. I want to specialize in geriatrics. Can I earn this type of advanced nursing degree online?
—Kim, Wisconsin Answer:
Yes. There are several online graduate school options for seasoned nurses who want to move from direct care into nursing management.
The most common online masters for you to consider would be the Masters of Science in Nursing (MSN). This is the traditional capstone nursing degree. Because there remains such a severe shortage of nurses, many colleges—indeed hospitals themselves—are sponsoring distance learning nursing masters degrees.
One caveat: to be eligible for a distance learning MSN you have to already be an RN with a BSN, ADN or nursing diploma.
You also will need to be employed in a workplace that will allow you to complete the supervised clinical practice requirement of your degree. Check with the hospital where you work. Chances are good your current employer meets all the educational criteria to serve as a supervised practical learning center.
The traditional MSN emphasizes practical patient care issues and may be needed if your primary job will be to supervise floor or practice RNs, for example.
However, you don’t have to limit yourself to the traditional MSN degree. There are other types of masters related to nursing that you may wish to consider.
• Masters in healthcare management
Many nurses faced with moving up to administrative careers opt instead to take health management degrees, such as the Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA).
The MHA degree focuses on health law, management, human resources, leadership, quality control, and budgeting and finance. It will not deepen your experience or knowledge of direct patient care. Instead, it will teach you to manage business units and both inpatient and outpatient services and operations.
• Masters in a service specialty area
Since you know the specialty you are moving toward—geriatrics (care for the elderly)—you could also earn a Masters in Gerontology or Geriatrics or Aging. A degree in a services specialty area such as this would expose you to the deeper issues—both in policy and in care—that face this sector of the healthcare population.
While such a degree won’t give you a deeper understanding of management issues such as human resources, budgeting and quality control, demand for nurses trained in specialty areas is extremely high.
There are many new and hot career areas using licensed or registered nurses. Specialty online graduate degrees, such as in patient advocacy or in the psychiatric treatment of terrorism victims, are becoming plentiful.
• Graduate certificate in a specialty field.
You might also consider an online graduate certificate in a specialty area of nursing or healthcare. A certificate requires less courses and hence takes less time and money than a masters degree. A specialty certificate in healthcare would allow you to re-specialize at the fastest speed.
Some of the most exciting new health management certificates are in areas such as disaster management, healthcare administration and gerontology.
