Alumni Feature: Joanie Krupa DNP ‘20
“People always ask does being a nurse educator make you sad to not have the patient experience? Honestly, I’m in such a blessed position where I get both,” says Joanie Krupa, Doctorate of Nursing Practice ’20, nursing professor at an undergraduate associate nursing program in Camden, NJ. “Two days per week, I go to the hospital for an 8-hour shift, working with students and patients. I still get that feeling that everybody goes into nursing for. I get the best of both worlds.”
Krupa graduated from nursing school in 2010 with her RN and found her passion in teaching. “I loved having new nurses to work with, so I knew that was the direction that I wanted to go in,” she says. She pursued her BSN in 2011, her MSN in 2015, and finally her DNP at Chatham in 2020. “Throughout that time I’ve been on the path to be a full-time educator, and for the last two years I’ve done so. It’s really great to be able to watch students go into the first room and be scared to death, and at the end they’re so confident in what they’re doing, and the following year I’ll be putting new nursing students with previous students as their mentors. It’s a full circle thing.”
Krupa worked as an RN from 2010-2015 when she graduated with her MSN, at which point she was able to transition into a clinical instructor position. She also took on some leadership roles, helping her hospital achieve Magnet status, and attending conferences geared toward helping the hospital to advance. “I even taught a sepsis class for a while to other nurses,” she says. “These were extra things outside my daily commitments.”
“I decided to get a DNP because I just wanted to really have that educational experience that really proves that my skill and my teaching ability are at the highest level. It wasn’t even necessarily to advance in my position, it was to bring the best experience and best knowledge to my students.”
“I loved it,” says Krupa about Chatham’s DNP program. “I felt as though I was challenged in so many different ways that I felt like I hadn’t been previously. The rigor was there, but I was guided by such great instructors. I feel like I have so much more knowledge that I can offer my students. I honestly recommend it to everyone now.”
A big factor for Krupa’s decision to come to Chatham was the ability to tie her capstone project in with her work with her students. “My project was on medication administration and medication error, and how to prevent those. I incorporated simulation to see if their practice would improve. Of course I was subject to COVID restrictions in my last semester, but even so, I was able to pull off an awesome project that now has been incorporated into my nursing program’s practice, which is really cool, too. Before simulation, 100% of students made a mistake. This was shown to improve by 90% in their medication administration path—a huge reduction in medication errors. It was a huge reward for me to see that my work made a difference within the school.”
Today, Krupa takes a group of nine students every Monday and Tuesday into a hospital unit and they work together with patients. “I help them go through processes of everything—administering medications, following plans of care, simple tasks with the patients, and then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I’m teaching the students in the classroom,” she says.
“Honestly, if nothing else,” says Krupa, “the most important thing to me is how my DNP degree from Chatham has made me more confident in my role. I know I have the educational background to be able to work through anything. For my type of position, I’m very very young, and I feel like a lot of times I’m often looked at as the younger instructor, and having my doctorate gives me that edge and boosts my confidence, so I’m like “no, I’m right there with you.”
Getting your Doctorate degree gives you the education and confidence you need to conquer any role in your career. Chatham has a number of Doctorate Degrees ready for you to explore.