School of Nursing Announces New Master’s and Post-Master’s Program for Psychiatric Mental Health

• By Jessica Bagwell
• March 2, 2016

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Nursing will be accepting applications May 1 to August 1 for all three tracks within the new psychiatric mental health program. According to Susan J Calloway, R.N., Ph.D., program director, the psychiatric mental health tracks address a disparity in the number of health care providers, which according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, needs to increase significantly in order to adequately care for the 46 percent of Texans who will experience a type of mental illness once or more in their lifetime.

 

“Working in mental health care is extremely rewarding because effective treatments allow individuals who have potentially had a poor quality of life return to living life free from the disabling effects of mental illness,” Calloway said.

 

Graduates of the program will be nurse practitioners specializing in psychiatric mental health. According to Calloway, all nurse practitioners have some education in mental health, but their expertise is limited contextually to their field.

 

“Nurse practitioners in other specialties can diagnose and treat non-complex mental health conditions, such as depression, within the context of their specialty, like women’s health, pediatrics or family medicine,” Calloway said. “However, these specialists could not diagnose or treat complex mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia. So, the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner is a health care provider who can diagnose and develop a treatment plan for these complex disorders.”

 

Calloway also mentioned that like many other health care specialists, psychiatric mental health care providers are particularly needed in rural areas. In order to address this issue, the new School of Nursing program will utilize technology.

 

“We will be implementing telemental health education within the curriculum,” Calloway said. “Students in the program will become nurse practitioners taught how to utilize the technology to diagnose psychiatric disorders and develop treatment plans, which include therapy and medication in evidence-based practice.”

 

TTUHSC School of Nursing says this approach is novel and could bring significant improvements to rural mental health care and health care education as the program pioneers the use of telehealth in mental health education and preceptor clinical experiences.

 

“We are excited to provide this innovative program as one of the first of its kind for nurse practitioner education in the country,” said Emily Merrill, R.N., Ph.D., The CH Foundation endowed professor of APRN studies at TTUHSC. “TTUHSC is the ideal setting for this program because of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural health, the TexLa Telehealth Resource Center, the F. Marie Hall SimLife Center and the high level of interprofessional collaboration.”

 

Technology is also playing a big role in the way the instruction is delivered as well. Students complete all of the course work online and complete preceptor clinical experiences, including education in providing telehealth psychiatric mental health services, in Lubbock. Calloway said this structure will ultimately provide more psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners to serve rural areas.

 

“Because the program is primarily online, nurses living in rural areas have the opportunity to complete their education in psychiatric mental health,” Calloway said. “This will allow us to provide more mental health nurse practitioners to Texas and fill the great need there.”

 

Calloway’s passion for rural health is personal, and she explained she is proud to lead a program that is proactively addressing the need for qualified mental health care providers in rural areas.

 

“I was reared in a rural area,” Calloway recalled. “I practiced in a rural area as a family nurse practitioner before returning for addition education to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner.”

 

Calloway said nurse practitioners are critically important to addressing rural health care needs, and their success depends on more than their clinical knowledge. They also have to cultivate a strong business acumen.

 

“Of course, the primary focus is helping patients, but we know how important it is to teach nurse practitioners how to set up practices and run them,” Calloway said. “We will be teaching these future psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners business principles so they can set up their own practice. We also teach them the laws regarding practicing as a nurse practitioner, particularly going into private practice. Many of these nurse practitioners will be hired by health care organizations, but we want them to have the option and confidence to open their own practice if they choose to.”

 

The program is versatile in that students can enter the program in three tracks. First, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) to Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) track is for the nurse with a BSN degree who would like to pursue a master’s degree in nursing specializing in psychiatric mental health. The second is the post-master’s Advance Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) certificate for nurses with an MSN degree who would like an APRN certificate in psychiatric mental health nursing. Finally, there is post-master’s certificate track for nurses who already have both an MSN degree and APRN certificate and want to earn an additional APRN specialty in psychiatric mental health nursing.

 

Calloway said the School of Nursing hopes to make the program accessible to as many nurses as possible with the convenience of online classes and the multiple tracks. She said mental health nurses are critically needed, and TTUHSC must make this education available.

 

“Now, there is new awareness in Texas and the U.S. that we need mental health care,” Calloway said. “That’s in part how this program was made possible. many people recognized the need and created an innovative response to that need.”