Marquette University Post-Master’s Nursing Certificates and Programs

After graduating with an MSN degree, you can further your education by pursuing one of our post-degree advanced nursing certificates. While your master’s degree sets the foundation for your advanced nursing education, these certificates further hone your skills in specific areas of practice—improving your future earning potential and long-term career prospects.

It’s also important to note that you must complete one of these certificate programs to work as an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN); these educational experiences are required to sit for certification as an APRN.

Certificate Options

Whether your goal is to help diagnose and treat illnesses or hold a leadership role in health care administration, our post-master’s certificates will prepare you to sit for the national certification examination that corresponds with your chosen nursing profession.

• Acute care nurse practitioner (ACNP) certificate (adult or pediatric): an advanced-practice registered nurse role that is required to deliver hospital-based care. An ACNP also diagnoses and treats acute and chronic illness, including prescribing medication and focusing on disease prevention.
• Primary care nurse practitioner (NP) certificate (adult or pediatric): an advanced-practice registered nurse role that is authorized to examine, diagnose, and treat patients, including prescribing medication, outside of a hospital setting. Individual state law determines if nurse practitioners can work independently of a physician.
• Nurse midwifery certificate: an advanced-practice registered nurse role that supports women’s health care needs before, during and after their pregnancies. This includes prenatal, postpartum and newborn care, tracking fetal development and performing physical exams. They also provide ongoing health care for women within and beyond the childbearing age.
• Health systems leadership certificate: a nurse leader, or administrator, creates effective, ethical and efficient health care delivery systems for improving patient and population health outcomes in a variety of health care settings including but not limited to clinics, medical centers, outpatient practices, community health settings and public health departments. After completing this program, you’ll be academically prepared to take one of the following nursing or health care administration certification exams:
  • American Organization for Nursing Leadership — AONL
  • American Nurses Credentialing Center — ANCC
  • American College of Health Care Executives — ACHE
• Teaching certificate for nurse educators: a nurse educator, through knowledge and skills and a passionate commitment, develops nurses of the future. This certificate provides transformational development in how to teach in a classroom, clinical unit and online. Content focuses on contemporary educational methods, developing others with differing learning styles and creating learning environments that support the complexity, challenges and opportunities of nursing education.

Advanced Nursing Programs

Marquette University also offers MSN graduates a way to continue advancing their nursing education with a Doctor of Nursing Practice program (DNP) or a Doctor of Philosophy program (Ph.D.).

• The DNP program emphasizes development of nursing practice expertise at the highest level, with a curriculum that focuses on topics such as informatics, leadership, health policy and advanced clinical practice.
• The Ph.D. program prepares nurse-scientists as teachers or scholars, with an emphasis on nursing knowledge development in a substantive research area of science aimed at the improvement of health and health care.