The changing landscape of doctoral education: Introducing the professional doctorate for nurses

The last decade has heralded the introduction of an alternative form of doctoral education for nurses in the United Kingdom, the professional or taught doctorate. First introduced in 1995 in the UK the number of professional doctorates for nurses has steadily increased totalling more than 23 programmes in 2004, a trend that seems set to continue. This paper presents those factors leading to the introduction of the professional doctorate in mainstream higher education generally and those leading to its adoption by the profession nursing. Professional doctorates are defined variously and these are considered relative to the traditional PhD. It will be some time before the full benefits of these programmes are realised and an empirical basis established. Meantime this paper highlights some of the potential benefits and some concerns whilst advocating recommendations that include the longitudinal evaluation of such programmes.