Essentials of doctoral education: organization of program around knowledge areas.

Abstract

This article presents a case study describing how one nursing doctoral program faculty has identified, organized, and taught the disciplinary knowledge component of the curriculum. Three foci were chosen: health promotion and risk reduction; acute, critical, and long-term care; and systems. Faculty groups designed each focus to capitalize on current faculty research strengths and did not use a formalized knowledge structure a priori. Scholarship content and sample courses are described. Factors affecting implementation included providing students with choice; a mixture of full-time and part-time students; little interchangeability of faculty in courses; balancing doctoral teaching with teaching at other levels; advisement issues; a lengthy formal curriculum approval process; and highly specific needs of individual students. Initial reflection shows the possibility of integrating the research methods content into the disciplinary courses in light of their interdependence; help gained through the process in achieving clarity about what the school wishes to be known for; the necessity of a critical mass of faculty with active research programs along with commitment to program enrichment; the role of the foci in providing intellectual sustenance and mutual faculty mentorship; and concern about the inability to fit of some faculty.