Strategies for success in a nursing PhD program and beyond.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to inform newly enrolled PhD students of program expectations, strategies for success, and next steps in the career of a nurse scientist.

Methods: We used empirical evidence and insights from the authors to describe strategies for success during a nursing PhD program and continued career development following graduation.

Findings: Measures of success included maintaining health, focus, integrity, and a supportive network, identifying mentors, pursuing new knowledge and advancing research to transform health outcomes.

Intensive Care Unit Scoring Systems.

Background: Illness severity scoring systems are commonly used in critical care. When applied to the populations for whom they were developed and validated, these tools can facilitate mortality prediction and risk stratification, optimize resource use, and improve patient outcomes.

Objective: To describe the characteristics and applications of the scoring systems most frequently applied to critically ill patients.

A developmental trajectory supporting the evaluation and achievement of competencies: Articulating the Mastery Rubric for the nurse practitioner (MR-NP) program curriculum.

Background: Advanced practice registered nursing (APRN) competencies exist, but there is no structure supporting the operationalization of the competencies by APRN educators. The development of a Mastery Rubric (MR) for APRNs provides a developmental trajectory that supports educational institutions, educators, students, and APRNs. A MR describes the explicit knowledge, skills, and abilities as performed by the individual moving from novice (student) through graduation and into the APRN career.