| Course | NU703 Professional Role Development of the DNP-Prepared Nurse |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Doctoral role comparison |
| Length | About 1,160 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU703 Unit 2
One Problem, Two Doctorates: Following Postoperative Delirium on a 32-Bed Orthopedic Unit Through the Work of a PhD Nurse Scientist and a DNP-Prepared Nurse
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU703: Professional Role Development of the DNP-Prepared Nurse
Unit 2 Doctoral Role Comparison
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The unit, graduates, interviews and the sleep trial are composite; numbers are bracketed.
Thesis
The PhD in nursing prepares scientists to generate new knowledge meant to hold beyond any single setting, while the DNP prepares clinicians to translate existing knowledge into practice and evaluate the result locally. The two roles are distinct, but each depends on the other, and a single clinical problem shows both the difference and the dependence.
The Problem
On a composite orthopedic unit of [32] beds, most patients are older adults recovering from hip and knee surgery. Delirium after surgery is common in this group and is associated with longer stays, falls and loss of function. Nurses on the unit see it every week, often at night, and the unit's own review found that [one in five] patients over [70] had a documented episode in the past year.
Two Roles, One Problem
The DNP-prepared nurse, the unit's clinical nurse specialist, starts from a body of evidence that already exists. Known as the Hospital Elder Life Program, one such intervention combines attention to orientation, sleep, mobility, hearing and vision, and hydration; it lowered how often delirium developed among older medical inpatients in a controlled trial (Inouye et al., 1999), and a later meta-analysis of multicomponent nonpharmacological interventions found reductions in delirium incidence and falls across fourteen studies (Hshieh et al., 2015). Her question is not whether such programs work but how to make one work on this unit, with its staffing, its surgical schedule and its patients. She adapts the program, trains volunteers and nurses, and measures delirium rates on the unit with run charts over [twelve] months, adjusting the approach in plan-do-study-act cycles. A systematic review found that PDSA cycles are widely used in health care but often applied without the iterative testing and data collection the method requires (Taylor et al., 2014), so she documents each cycle's prediction and result.
The PhD-prepared nurse scientist, a faculty member at the affiliated university, asks a different question: does a specific sleep protocol, not yet well tested, reduce delirium after orthopedic surgery? That question requires a funded, multisite randomized trial with a control group, standardized delirium assessment, institutional review board oversight and a sample large enough to detect a difference. The result, published in a peer-reviewed journal, is meant to apply to orthopedic patients in general, not only to this unit.
Comparison
The two roles differ in seven ways.
1. Question. DNP: how do we make an established intervention work here? PhD: does a new intervention work at all?
2. Method. DNP: quality improvement, with run charts and PDSA cycles. PhD: a randomized controlled trial.
3. Oversight. DNP: the hospital's quality improvement review, which usually determines that the project is not human subjects research. PhD: full institutional review board approval.
4. Product. DNP: a working program on one unit and an evaluation of its results. PhD: new, generalizable knowledge.
5. Audience. DNP: the unit's clinicians and hospital leaders. PhD: researchers and clinicians everywhere.
6. Dissemination. DNP: a report to leadership, a poster or a practice journal. PhD: a research journal article and grant reports.
7. Time horizon. DNP: months. PhD: years from funding to publication.
The nurse scientist asks whether something is true; the DNP-prepared nurse asks whether it is true here, and what it takes to make it so.
Two Interview Summaries
The DNP-prepared clinical nurse specialist, composite, described the hardest part of her project as the night shift: volunteers left at eight in the evening, and delirium often began after midnight. She adapted the program so that night nurses took over its sleep components, a change no trial had tested but that her unit's data could evaluate. She said she reads research constantly but has no wish to run a trial.
The PhD-prepared nurse scientist, composite, described five years from her first grant application to the trial's final paper. She said that trials answer narrow questions well and that the results often wait years to be adopted, and she depends on clinicians like the unit's nurse specialist to show whether findings hold in practice. She would like more clinicians to tell her which questions matter.
What Each Found
After twelve months, the unit's run chart showed delirium among patients over [70] falling from about [20] percent to about [13] percent, with the largest drop after the night shift change in month [five]. The nurse specialist was careful in her report to leadership: the data showed a change on this unit over this period, not proof that the program caused it, since staffing and the surgical mix had also shifted. She recommended continuing the program and adding a delirium screen to the unit's routine assessment.
The trial, when it was published, found that the sleep protocol reduced delirium modestly compared with usual care, with the effect concentrated in patients who had no cognitive impairment before surgery. That finding immediately raised a practical question the trial could not answer: how to deliver the protocol on units that could not afford the trial's research nurses. The nurse scientist named that question in her discussion section, and it is the question the nurse specialist began to test the following year.
Where the Roles Meet
The two roles hand work to each other in a cycle. The nurse scientist's published trial becomes evidence the DNP-prepared nurse can apply. The DNP-prepared nurse's local data, especially what fails in practice, such as the night shift gap, becomes a new research question for the scientist. And when the trial needs a site, the DNP-prepared nurse helps recruit patients and train staff. Each role starts a handoff the other completes.
Why the Distinction Matters for a DNP Student
Confusing the two roles causes problems in both directions. A DNP student who designs a project as if it were a trial may spend months seeking approvals for a study too small to answer its question, and miss the point of the project, which is to improve care in a real setting and learn from what happens. A student who treats quality improvement as research may overstate what a run chart can prove. Knowing which question one is asking, whether something works or how to make it work here, decides the method, the oversight and the claims one can make at the end.
Conclusion
The PhD and the DNP are not higher and lower versions of the same degree. They answer different questions with different methods for different audiences. On one orthopedic unit, delirium prevention needs both: a scientist to find out what works, and a practice scholar to make it work on the unit and report what the trial did not foresee.
References
Hshieh, T. T., Yue, J., Oh, E., Puelle, M., Dowal, S., Travison, T., & Inouye, S. K. (2015). Effectiveness of multicomponent nonpharmacological delirium interventions: A meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine, 175(4), 512-520. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.7779
Inouye, S. K., Bogardus, S. T., Jr., Charpentier, P. A., Leo-Summers, L., Acampora, D., Holford, T. R., & Cooney, L. M., Jr. (1999). A multicomponent intervention to prevent delirium in hospitalized older patients. New England Journal of Medicine, 340(9), 669-676. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199903043400901
Taylor, M. J., McNicholas, C., Nicolay, C., Darzi, A., Bell, D., & Reed, J. E. (2014). Systematic review of the application of the plan-do-study-act method to improve quality in healthcare. BMJ Quality & Safety, 23(4), 290-298. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2013-001862
Reading the NU 703 Unit 2 instructions
For Unit 2 you compare the practice doctorate with the research doctorate, often through a shared example. The paper typically needs a thesis, a description of each role's purpose, a structured comparison, evidence from professional documents or literature, and an account of how the roles work together. Many versions invite or require an interview with a doctorally prepared nurse. Five pages in APA format is the usual size. Instructors reward a thesis that states the difference precisely, a comparison organized on the same dimensions for both roles, and a collaboration section that shows concrete handoffs rather than a general call for teamwork. Be accurate about oversight: quality improvement and research are reviewed differently, and many DNP projects still require an institutional determination before data are collected.
How the NU 703 Unit 2 example is put together
A two-sentence thesis opens the paper. The problem section describes the unit and how often delirium occurs there. The two roles then take up the same problem: the nurse specialist builds on the 1999 HELP trial and a 2015 meta-analysis and documents each PDSA cycle, since a systematic review found the method often applied without real iteration, while the nurse scientist designs a funded trial. The seven-part comparison follows, with the highlighted sentence on whether something is true and whether it is true here. Two interviews describe the night-shift gap and the years from grant to publication. A section reports what each found, another shows the cycle of handoffs, and the closing sections explain the stakes for a student.
NU703 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Role comparison papers are frequently marked on thesis, accuracy about each doctorate, structure of the comparison, use of evidence and collaboration. The thesis earns full credit when it states the difference and the dependence in a sentence or two. Accuracy is judged on how each role's purpose, methods and oversight are described, including the review that quality improvement receives. Structure rewards a comparison that asks the same questions of both roles. Evidence points go to professional documents and literature tied to the example, not general statements about nursing education. Collaboration is credited when the paper names specific handoffs, such as local data becoming a research question. APA formatting and a conclusion that returns to the thesis complete the rubric in most sections.
NU703 Unit 2 help from the desk
One recurring weakness is describing the DNP as a lesser version of the PhD, or the reverse. Another is treating quality improvement as research, which leads to overstated claims about what a run chart proves. Some papers compare the roles on different dimensions, so the contrast blurs. Interviews are often summarized at length with no link to the thesis. The collaboration section is frequently a sentence about teamwork with no example. And students sometimes cite the 2006 Essentials as current. Choose one clinical problem, follow it through both roles on the same dimensions, and end by naming exactly what each role hands the other; that structure makes the difference and the dependence visible without extra explanation.
Get an NU703 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Name a clinical problem you care about and say whether your Unit 2 prompt requires interviews, then include the rubric. The comparison follows that single problem through both doctoral roles, cites the defining documents, and maps the handoffs between them. It is ready in 24-48h, and your first sample carries no fee. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More NU703 papers and DNP samples
- NU703 Unit 1: Discussion Post, What the DNP Adds
- NU703 Unit 3: Scholarship Model Application
- NU703 Unit 4: Competency Self-assessment
- NU703 Unit 5: Literature Synthesis
- NU703 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- NU703 Unit 7: Leadership Philosophy Statement
- NU703 Unit 8: Professional Organization Analysis
- NU703 Unit 9: Practice Problem Statement
- NU703 Unit 10: Doctoral Development Portfolio
NU703 Unit 2 questions, answered
Is a DNP project a form of research?
Generally not in the sense of generating generalizable knowledge. AACN's 2015 report describes DNP projects as translating evidence into practice and evaluating outcomes, often through quality improvement methods. Some projects involve data collection that still needs institutional review, so the paper should describe the oversight route rather than assume one. The distinction is about purpose and design, not rigor.
Should the comparison include an interview?
When the prompt calls for one or permits it, and then with permission and without identifying details in the paper. Summarize what the person described in your own words and connect it to a claim in the comparison. If an interview is not possible, many sections accept published role descriptions instead. The sample uses composite interview summaries.
Which documents define the two doctorates?
For the DNP, AACN's 2004 position statement, the 2021 Essentials and the 2015 report clarifying DNP implementation. For the research doctorate, AACN's 2010 statement on research-focused programs describes expected outcomes. Cite each by year and use the current Essentials rather than the 2006 edition they replaced. Your course readings may add others.
Where can I find a free NU703 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page carries the full NU703 Unit 2 role comparison, following one problem through a DNP-prepared nurse and a PhD scientist, with a seven-part comparison, two interviews, their findings, their handoffs and three references. We can draft a comparison that follows a clinical problem you have seen.
Why use one clinical problem in NU703 Unit 2?
Following postoperative delirium through both roles shows the difference concretely: the scientist tests whether a new intervention works, while the DNP-prepared nurse makes an established one work on a particular unit. It also makes the handoffs between them visible.