The University of Arizona College of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programme has received pre-accreditation from the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education for students to become certified nurse-midwives.

The pre-accreditation now means students can study towards becoming nurse-midwives through the University of Arizona’s DNP programme.

Graduates of the nurse-midwifery speciality will become eligible to take national certification examination by the American Midwifery Certification Board.

Director of the Nurse-Midwife Programme, Erin McMahon, EdD, CNM, FACNM, said: “My goal is to establish a midwifery program [sic] that creates more nurse-midwives and develops a more diverse profession that is representative of the communities that we serve. Our primary goal will be to attract registered nurses from within our Arizona communities to attend our program [sic] and stay in the communities to continue to provide care where they are.”

According to the University of Arizona Health Sciences, access to prenatal and obstetric services are decreasing in rural areas of the state due to closures of obstetric units and rural and critical access hospitals. A number of Arizona’s counties have few or no obstetric providers, with nearly half of women living in rural areas travelling more than 30 minutes to receive maternity care.

The hybrid nursing-midwifery programme will provide a mixture of online coursework, on-campus intensives and clinical placements.

Current DNP students can transfer onto the speciality course, with new applicants being able to apply from Autumn 2023 during the admission process.

The nurse-midwife speciality programme achieved accreditation by meeting all of the requirements necessary and will evaluated for full accreditation once the first cohort has graduated.