The healthcare professionals of the future will need to tackle more and increasingly complex tasks. This is outlined in the government's new healthcare reform. The reform aims to shift more tasks previously handled in hospitals to the primary healthcare sector, which naturally demands opportunities for further education – especially for nurses.

One of the growing challenges highlighted in the healthcare reform is the increasing number of patients with multiple chronic conditions. Danes are living longer and, with age, acquiring more chronic illnesses. In dealing with such patients, nurses – in collaboration with other healthcare professionals – will need to develop patient pathways that incorporate the latest research and treatment methods.

As part of this upskilling effort, and as part of a completely separate reform initiative in education, the government proposes establishing a one-year professional master’s program for nurses and other welfare sector professionals. This might sound like a forward-thinking offer, but it could very well prove to be the opposite.

Currently, nurses already have access to a two-year master’s program in nursing at universities. This master’s program is specifically tailored to clinical practice, is well-established, and provides in-depth knowledge and skills to handle complex patient pathways. One of the tracks, Advanced Practice Nursing, was developed in collaboration with municipalities and the Danish Nurses’ Organization.

The master’s program is highly sought after and directly aligned with the job market in which future nurses will work.

It makes no sense to reduce the number of spots in university-level master’s programs for nurses while simultaneously shifting more complex tasks to the primary healthcare sector closer to citizens.

Another intention of the government is to ensure that fewer physicians and more professionals from other healthcare fields pursue a Ph.D. to conduct research in areas such as prevention, treatment of complex diseases, and holistic patient pathways in relation to the broader and more localized healthcare system.

A master’s degree in nursing is a prerequisite for enrolling in a Ph.D. program. Therefore, reducing the recruitment pool by cutting the number of nurses who can obtain a master’s degree at the university level makes no sense. This could have serious long-term consequences for the treatment and care of patients, as less research and development in the field would result.

The primary argument for cutting university master’s slots in favor of a professional master’s is the fear that nurses will leave the sector after further education.

This is a misconception. The data is clear: the vast majority of healthcare graduates remain in the field.

In the Danish Nurses’ Organization's major 2023 work environment survey, 95% of nurses with a master’s degree reported performing nursing-related work in their current jobs.

Universities offer nurses with a practice-oriented professional bachelor’s degree an opportunity to pursue further education that equips them to contribute to the development of primary healthcare, manage increasingly complex patient pathways, and, for a smaller group, enroll in a Ph.D. program to conduct research within the field.

The risk of weakening nurses’ opportunities for further education looms if the government follows through with plans to cut nursing master’s programs and replace this pathway with a one-year professional master’s program. No one wants to devalue nursing education at a time when the opposite is needed – so let’s avoid it.

The opinion piece was published in Jyllands-Posten on November 21, 2024.

This text is based on machine translation