About the School

Advances in clinical care and the transformation in the healthcare delivery models spurred by national reform efforts make this an ideal time to launch the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies.

The school offers a three-year, part-time program leading to a Master of Science with a major in nursing in three population foci: Family Nurse Practitioner, Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, and Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner.

Emphasizing a learner-centric approach in small group settings, the curriculum is grounded in concept-learning delivered through various pedagogies by an interprofessional faculty.  This approach will equip the students to successfully adapt and thrive in team-based environments. In addition, students will be placed with appropriate board-certified clinicians, further ensuring a challenging, academically-enriched experience.

The School also includes Hofstra’s well-established programs in Physician Assistant (PA) Studies, where applicants can enter either as first-year or graduate students.  Applicants who enter as graduate students can earn a Master of Science in PA Studies in 28 months. First-year students who pursue the dual Bachelor of Science/Master of Science in PA Studies can finish both degrees in 5½ years, saving time and money.

In keeping with our mission to train competent physician assistants qualified to practice evidence-based medicine, the program includes a well-rounded clinical clerkship experience and a semester focusing on an in-depth study of a clinically relevant original research topic.

Our experiential learning facilities offer both nursing and PA students the opportunity to integrate both theory and practice in diverse academic and clinical settings with a variety of healthcare professionals and scholars.

As the rapidly transforming healthcare landscape continues to evolve, we are well-positioned to meet the ever-increasing demand for nurse practitioners and physician assistants for the 21st century. Please explore our web site and learn more about our innovative curriculum and learning opportunities.

Kathleen Gallo, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN
Founding Dean and Professor
516-463-7488
Email: kathleen.gallo@hofstra.edu

PEARLS

The curriculum is anchored in a hybrid case-based learning pedagogy known by its acronym, PEARLS (Patient-centered Explorations in Active Reasoning, Learning, and Synthesis). PEARLS is the primary teaching/learning practice which guides other learning activities and implements a flipped-classroom approach. It is the Graduate Nursing Program’s structural framework for case-based learning. The goal of PEARLS is for students to synthesize biomedical science in the context of clinical cases through higher order learning conversations in peer groups. Small group environments are critical to the delivery of case based learning sessions. In each group, the students determine learning objectives for a case, research material to discuss the objectives, and then participate in collating their collective knowledge into responses that meet the science and clinical learning objectives of the cases. The faculty facilitator serves as a resource for the student-led case session process and ensures that the learning objectives are covered in adequate detail. Following the completion of each week’s PEARLS cases, the students receive the cases’ expected learning objectives. This offers yet another opportunity for self-directed integration of curricular material. Through this process, students actively become adept in their thinking about scientific mechanisms and clinical signs and symptoms. This pedagogy is learner-centric and incorporates scientific knowledge, clinical reasoning, health promotion and prevention, social determinants of health and population health perspectives across the lifespan.

Structure Lab

The Structure Lab provides students with an approach to the structure of the major regions and systems of the human body by integrating normal anatomy, gross pathologic and histological anatomy, medical imaging, ultrasound, and physical diagnosis. During each session, students rotate in small groups through a series of situations in which they are questioned socratically by clinical and basic science faculty members. The content of Structure Lab correlates closely with the material covered in PEARLS, Simulation, Clinical Skills and group sessions.

Simulation and Clinical Skills

Simulation provides students the opportunity to actively apply pharmacologic and physiologic principles learned in the PEARLS cases to clinical scenarios. During these sessions and the debriefings that follow them, students identify, analyze and synthesize relevant information and translate it into an implemented action plan. The Clinical Skills Center allows students to develop and practice communication and physical diagnosis skills. During these sessions, students have the opportunity to self-assess and debrief with their longitudinal coaches and to incorporate that feedback in approaching the clinical situation once again. Both simulation and clinical skills session are used as opportunities for active clinical learning, as well as to assess students in both formative and summative fashions.

Bioskills Education Center

The fresh-frozen human tissue lab of Northwell Health will be used for hands-on simulation and surgical skills instruction and assessment. 

Interprofessional team learning, comprised of nurse practitioner students, medical students and physician assistant students will be conducted, where appropriate, throughout the program.

Mission

The Master of Science Program with a major in Nursing, through an interprofessional learning model, will graduate Nurse Practitioners who will be prepared to provide quality, holistic, scientifically sound, and patient-centered care while optimizing the health and well-being of diverse populations and communities for the betterment of humanity.

Values

Graduates of the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies will be recognized by their practice and conduct as exemplary health professionals. The core values of the Master of Science Programs create the curricular framework for the continued development of our learners’ professional identity formation as advanced practice nurses. The ten values make explicit for students those tenets of professionalism to be demonstrated in their new healthcare roles:

• Collaboration: We work to enhance the advanced practice nurses’, as well as communities of practice, collaborative efforts to partner with the populations we serve as well as our interprofessional colleagues to provide quality, safe patient care. Collegiality, teamwork and partnership will be the cornerstone of our success in the advancement of our commitment to the health and well being of our consumers and each other.
• Courage: We promote the ethical, moral and mental fortitude that enables our advanced practice nurses, as well as communities of practice, to advocate in support of the healthcare consumers' values, beliefs, and preferences.
• Diversity:  In appreciation of the broad range of human needs and perspectives, we support a diverse learning community that prepares our advanced practice nurses,  as well as communities of practice, to provide care that embraces the commonalities and differences of our healthcare consumers.
• Excellence: We are committed to developing advanced practice nurses, as well as communities of practice, who challenge the existing norms to achieve exemplary value-based healthcare outcomes while increasing access to care.
• Global Health: We prepare advanced practice nurses to function in a variety of settings, as well as communities of practice, to impact global health.
• Humanism: We prepare our advanced practice nurses, as well as communities of practice, to deliver care that is respectful of and responsive to the preferences, needs and values of the healthcare consumer through effective communication and consumer participation.
• Innovation: We believe in a creative and evolving educational approach to the development of advanced practice nurses, as well as communities of practice, enabling them to respond to the ever-changing needs of a broad spectrum of consumers in a dynamic healthcare environment.
• Leadership: We believe that leadership is an important value for all of our stakeholders. We will inspire both our faculty and students to have the courage to lead and positively influence the future state of healthcare in the 21st century.
• Learning: We provide an interprofessional learning environment committed to student-centered academic and clinical development, personal and professional growth, and life-long learning.
• Scholarship: We foster a culture of excellence that supports our faculty and students’ engagement in the continuum of scholarship, from discovery, integration, application and education, encouraging them to link scientific inquiry and cutting-edge research with the provision of high quality, evidence-based, patient-centered care to advance global health.

Graduate Nursing Program Outcomes

Through the values of leadership, scholarship, collaboration, innovation, excellence, global health, humanism, learning, courage and diversity, advanced practice nurses who complete the curriculum of the respective track of the Master of Science program will:

• Integrate critical analysis from the sciences and humanities to improve advanced practice nursing and health outcomes.
• Develop innovative practice by integrating principles of change throughout health care systems.
• Apply investigative skills in the translation of new knowledge to improve practice and health outcomes.
• Demonstrate proficiency in the use of improvement sciences and peer review to achieve measurable health outcomes, including, but not limited to, value-based health care.
• Apply technology and scientific health information to coordinate and deliver personalized health care to a diverse global population.
• Advocate strategies to impact the ethical, legal, and social factors of global health care policy.
• Collaborate as leaders and members of the interprofessional team to maximize communication and coordination of care to achieve optimal health outcomes.
• Provide a full spectrum of evidence-based health care services throughout the life cycle of the population served to optimize health outcomes.
• Demonstrate professionalism, accountability and ownership while providing patient-centered care that recognizes diversity and respects consumer preferences.

The Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies aims to be the global leader in interprofessional education preparing the next generation of Advanced Practice Nurses and Physician Assistants.

The School will incorporate the diverse academic programs and infrastructure of Hofstra University, as well as the significant clinical activities and educational resources of Northwell Health.