Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
(ACNP)
Patients with complex conditions or problems rely on the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner in a variety of clinical settings. Are you interested in this important role?
What Will You Do as an ACNP?
As an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, you will provide advanced nursing care to adults with acute, critical and chronic conditions. You will practice in settings where patients require specialized care such as complex and continuous monitoring, intricate or invasive therapies or interpretation of diagnostic testing. In delivering patient care, your goals will be to stabilize the patient, minimize complications, manage additional on-going health care problems and promote physical and psychological well-being.
Where Will You Practice? (clinical sites)
With the increasing intensity and shortened length of stay of acutely ill patients in hospitals and the decrease in medical resident hours, a shift in hospital employment trends has increased demand for Acute Care Nurse Practitioners. The ACNP frequently practices in acute care, hospital-based and many other specialty clinical settings. These will be available to you for practice during your Vanderbilt clinical education and upon completion and certification as an ACNP. They include:
- Specialty Clinics (e.g., cardiology, transplantation, oncology, nephrology, neurology, HIV, sports medicine-orthopedics)
- Emergency Departments
- Trauma Centers
- Hospital Inpatient Units (e.g., cardiology, oncology, nephrology, neurology, surgical, medical)
- Intensive Care Units (e.g., medical, surgical, coronary, trauma)
- Rehabilitation Units
How Will Vanderbilt Prepare You for Practice?
The Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at Vanderbilt School of Nursing is exciting and challenging. Through our program:
- You will gain clinical experience, with hands-on learning in application and evaluation of diagnostic reasoning, advanced therapeutic interventions and consultation.
- Your curriculum plan will provide in-depth content about pathophysiology and management of complex patient problems with various illnesses, so that you learn to help both the patient and family achieve the highest degree of wellness possible.
- You will come to understand the acute, critical and chronic aspects of selected diseases, so you can anticipate and manage many acute episodic problems that may occur.
- You may choose to focus in an area of specialization – with a wealth of preceptorship opportunities at Nashville-area practice sites, allowing you to practice at an advanced level in your selected area of specialization.
- Your Vanderbilt credential will be recognized in health care circles everywhere, and you will be prepared for the next steps toward certification.
Are You Already a Nurse?
Learn From Where You Live.
The ACNP specialty program is one of several specialties at Vanderbilt School of Nursing offered in a modified learning (block) format that allows RN students to attend graduate school without having to relocate or give up employment. Through distributed learning methods, courses offered in blocks of time on campus (including weekends), through online conferencing, and with clinical practicum placement in your home area where possible, you can earn your MSN degree without being away from home for extended periods.
Interested in Nurse Anesthesia?
We Offer a Special Option.
Students who complete the Vanderbilt Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree within the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (ACNP) Program and who meet other criteria for admission to Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia (MTSA) will be eligible for an interview and potential acceptance at MTSA. Learn more.
