The Master of Science in Nursing programs at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE):
Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education
655 K Street, NW, Suite 750
Washington, DC 20001
202-463-6930.
The MSN (Entry into Nursing) Program prepares students to become Master’s level nurse generalists with advanced knowledge and skills to deliver and direct care to patients with complex conditions on interprofessional teams in a hospital, primary care, or community health setting.
This full-time, five-term program is delivered on-site and prepares students to take the nursing licensure exam (NCLEX) and be licensed as an RN upon graduation. The program emphasizes leadership, global impact, quality and safety, and evidence-based interprofessional education. Students learn from a framework that integrates knowledge from the physical sciences, the humanities, public health, genetics, and organizational sciences into nursing practice. For the MSN (Entry into Nursing) Program, the coursework in each semester builds on the knowledge acquired during the prior semester. MSN (Entry into Nursing) students may not progress to new semester coursework if all previous semester coursework is not successfully completed.
Graduates will be qualified to enter the nursing workforce immediately or continue their studies toward an advanced practice nursing specialty or doctoral degree.
Students must complete the program sequentially, as outlined in the curriculum, within 5 years.
Enhancement Options
Community Outreach
The Community Outreach Program (COP) provides community health nursing and other valuable services to local individuals, families, communities, and populations, with an emphasis on East Baltimore. The goal of the program is to improve the health status of Baltimore City communities and to provide services to historically marginalized populations. The Community Outreach Program is a student service-learning component of the Center for Community Programs, Innovations, and Scholarship (COMPASS), in partnership with SOURCE, the community engagement and service-learning center for the JHU Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine. Students have outstanding opportunities to collaborate with historically marginalized communities in and around Baltimore City while they complete their nursing education. There are a wide range of community site placement options within COP, including school health, hospice care, harm reduction services, advocacy initiatives, youth programming, Latino/a/x-serving organizations, and much more.
Birth Companions
Birth Companions is a course and program designed to teach students how to be a doula. Students learn how to support individuals during the pregnancy, during labor and birth, and after birth with their continuous presence and complementary interventions. They provide emotional, informational, and physical support to those who are pregnant and serve as an advocate during the entire childbirth process. Students receive doula training from a DONA-certified trainer and learn about maternal-child and public health support from school faculty when they take the course. Birth Companion support is provided as a free service to individuals in the Baltimore-metropolitan area who self-refer to the program.
Fuld Fellows Program
The Helene Fuld Leadership Program for the Advancement of Patient Safety and Quality (The Fuld Fellows Program) is designed to prepare a select group of MSN Entry into Nursing Practice students for developing nursing leadership and competencies related to quality improvement and patient safety. This program pairs students who have a special interest in developing quality and safety skills beyond those ensured by the current curriculum with a mentor who is developing or has an ongoing quality improvement/patient safety related project. Fuld Fellows are given unique opportunities to capitalize on the intellectual and institutional resources that distinguish Johns Hopkins as a leader in healthcare quality and safety.
Research Honors Program
The Research Honors Program provides exposure to nursing research and emphasizes professional nurses’ commitment to rigorous scientific inquiry that provides a significant body of knowledge to advance nursing practice, shape health policy, and impact the health of people. Students attend seminars and actively participate in research, which is focused on generating new knowledge.
Health Systems Sciences Interprofessional Scholars Program
The Health Systems Sciences (HSS) Interprofessional Scholars Program is a joint initiative between the Johns Hopkins University Schools of Nursing and Medicine. The program is built using the Health Systems Science framework. Health systems science is a foundational platform and framework for the study and understanding of how care is delivered, how health professionals work together to deliver that care, and how the health system can improve patient care and health care delivery.
This program aims to produce effective “systems citizens” who recognize that addressing care issues and gaps is an obligatory responsibility of all healthcare professionals. This program brings together pre-licensure/undergraduate students and recent graduates from health professions (e.g., medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, chaplaincy) to 1) learn with and from other team members, 2) approach everyday care by seeing the work through a systems thinking lens, and 3) how to address system issues across the care continuum for individual patients and populations of patients.
Policy Honors Program
The Policy Honors Program (PHP) at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing encourages students to explore the ways that nurses can engage with policymakers in any area of the profession they pursue. Graduates work to improve the health of individuals and diverse communities locally and globally, and this program provides students with a foundation of skills to address critical health challenges and be more effective change agents and leaders.
| First Semester | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| NR.120.501 | Professionalism for Nursing in Health Care | 3 |
| NR.120.502 | Foundations of Nursing Practice | 3 |
| NR.120.503 | Health Assessment I | 3 |
| NR.120.504 | Pathophysiology I | 3 |
| NR.120.505 | Integrated Clinical Management: Common Health Alterations | 4 |
| NR.120.537 | Community Outreach to Underserved Communities in Urban Baltimore | 1 |
| NR.120.546 | Seminar in Specialty Nursing: Acute Care of Children | 3 |
| Credits | 20 | |
| Second Semester | ||
| NR.120.507 | Pharmacology | 3 |
| NR.120.509 | Promoting Health in Older Adults | 3 |
| NR.120.511 | Integrated Clinical Management: Chronic Health Alterations | 4 |
| NR.210.606 | Biostatistics for Evidence-Based Practice | 3 |
| NR.210.610 | Health Promotion and Risk Reduction Across the Lifespan 1 | 2 |
| Credits | 15 | |
| Third Semester | ||
| NR.120.513 | Leadership for Professional Nursing 2 | 3 |
| NR.120.515 | Psychiatric Mental Health 2 | 3 |
| NR.120.516 | Integrated Clinical Management: Complex Health Alterations | 4 |
| NR.210.608 | The Research Process and Its Application to Evidence-Based Practice | 3 |
| Credits | 13 | |
| Fourth Semester | ||
| NR.120.520 | Nursing the Childbearing Family 2 | 4 |
| NR.120.529 | Population and Public Health Nursing 2 | 4 |
| NR.120.521 | Child Health 2 | 4 |
| NR.210.609 | Philosophical, Theoretical & Ethical Basis of Advanced Nursing Practice 2 | 3 |
| Credits | 15 | |
| Fifth Semester | ||
| NR.120.527 | Integrated Clinical Management: Synthesis Practicum | 6 |
| NR.210.607 | Context of Health Care for Advanced Nursing Practice | 3 |
| Nursing Specialty Elective Course 3 | 3 | |
| Credits | 12 | |
| Total Credits | 75 | |
- 1
This course offered in 3rd term for spring entrants.
- 2
These are 7-week courses taken consecutively within the semester
- 3
Only 3 elective credits are required in the 5th term
Program Outcomes
The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing prepares nurses to advance health equity by providing evidence-based and patient-centered care to diverse individuals and populations globally. Our curricula are grounded in nursing’s unique obligation and capacity to advance racial, social and planetary justice. To this end, our students and faculty will interact with mutual respect and accountability that prioritizes learning, discovery, and the inclusion of diverse persons, families, and communities. In addition, we value a competency-based approach that ensures graduates are agents of transformational change that advance health equity through clinical expertise, leadership, policy, scholarship, and ethical professional practice.
The purpose of the MSN program is to prepare nurses to provide safe, competent, and patient-centered care to diverse clients across all settings and spheres of care.
Essential: Knowledge for Nursing Practice
Program Outcome: A global thinker whose worldview is informed by a foundation of liberal arts, natural, and social sciences for nursing practice.
Essential: Person Centered Care
Program Outcome: An equal partner with patients whose care is based on sound clinical judgement, and an understanding of structural determinants of health.
Essential: Population Health
Program Outcome: An advocate who promotes equitable community and population health through sustained and respectful community partnerships, data analysis, interventions and policies that address structural threats to well-being, safety, and preparedness.
Essential: Scholarship for Nursing Discipline
Program Outcome: A critical consumer of and contributor to multidisciplinary research, quality improvement, and health programs that inform nursing care across settings.
Essential: Quality and Safety
Program Outcome: An evidence-based clinician who contributes to solutions to promote safe, equitable, quality care.
Essential: Interprofessional partnerships
Program Outcome: A self-reflective leader who fosters respectful and effective collaboration with partners across settings.
Essential: Systems based practice
Program Outcome: A valued team member who recognizes and uses systems-level opportunities to advance equity.
Essential: Informatics and Healthcare Technologies
Program Outcome: A skilled clinician who applies technology, data, and systems processes to promote healthy and effective work environments and safe, equitable patient care.
Essential: Professionalism
Program Outcome: An accountable leader who models and expects ethical, lawful, and just practice.
Essential: Personal, professional, and leadership development
Program Outcome: A life-long learner who fosters an alignment of professional values and goals that advances health equity and self-stewardship.
The Doctor of Nursing Practice and Masters of Science in Nursing program outcomes are based on the Advanced and Entry-level competencies, respectively, as described in “The Essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education”. (AACN, 2021).