MSN MBA Dual Degree

With the distinction between business and the health field coming to a close, the dual MSN-MBA program is enabling nursing professional to take both degrees simultaneously. The MSN-MBA dual degree gives you splendid opportunities to take executive positions in the health care profession. A nurse graduate having both the Masters in Business Administration and a Master’s in Nursing will always have a competitive edge when it comes to getting higher and administrative or executive positions.

The dual degree program prepares you to have superior knowledge pertaining business skills and theory to help with the efficient organization, planning, directing and execution of health care system services.

Prerequisites For Admission to Dual MSN/MBA Programs

Students wishing to enroll for this dual degree program must apply for both graduate programs at their schools of choice. To be eligible, students must be accepted in both graduates programs they have applied for. As an added requirement, students must have earned their Bachelor of nursing degrees and must have an encumbered RN license.

Students can also apply in two different institutions of higher learning for each distinct masters program as long as any two schools have collaboration in offering the dual MSN-MBA degree programs.

Program Structure for the Dual MSN-MBA Programs

The course curricula are complex and require utmost dedication on part of the student. The study involves concurrent study of both course requirements with a merger only being made in the final year. Student nurses have distinct curriculum for each of the programs and credits are recognized and totaled up at the end of study. The program structure takes this form:

Core Courses

These include core courses required for the Master of Science in nursing and the ones for the MBA.  These usually total to ten with five core credits from each distinct program. Students take advanced practice nurse courses including foundations, nursing research methods and policies in health care. On the business side, student nurses take courses like basic economics, accounting, organizational management and business law.

MBA Foundation Courses

These courses are meant to equip the student nurse with excellent healthcare administration skills with respect to health care systems. Most business schools offer three credits for this part and the courses are completed from the business school. They are basic courses that give introduction to the business administration field.

MBA Core Courses

These are business administration courses that fully equip the nurse student with business theories, business analytical skills, corporate manning among others. Specific credits to be covered under this bracket include marketing strategies and strategy analysis, statistical, financial, economical and accounting analysis. For most MSN/MBA programs, these courses take a quarter of the curriculum to total up to 18 credits.

MSN Specialty Courses

It is obvious that a registered nurse taking a master of nursing must chose a field of specialty to become an advanced practice registered nurse. For this reason, the MSN line must cover approximately 20 credits for specialty courses. Students must choose from either of the numerous fields of Specialists Nurse like pediatrics, psychiatry, gerontology, cardiology among other nurse specialties.

Comprehensive course coverage is done for this specialty course as they are, the major reasons why nurses take the MSN: to become nurse specialists/ Advanced practice RNs. Like with any nursing courses, clinical attachment is part of this specialty courses.

Combined Clinical MSN/MBA Courses

These courses have the objective of assessing the mastery of both degree programs for the health care systems. Student nurses take-on clinical practicum hours to ensure their classroom knowledge is implemented in the real work situation. The integrated dual MSN/MBA courses are taught and nurses are trained on implementation of the MBA skills at the clinical level.

These practicum sessions are a bit different from those of the specialty courses as students are not being assessed for their clinical skills but administration skills. It is the ultimate test of the credibility of the MSN MBA dual degree programs. In total, students take approximately 58 credits for the complete dual degree program with an additional 400-450 clinical practicum hours.

Certification of the MSN/MBA Joint Degree Programs

After the successful completion of the MSN MBA dual degree program, student nurses are eligible to take the Advanced Nurse Administrator test offered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

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