The Duke School of Nursing is relatively one of the most recently built schools for nurses. Duke School of Nursing was opened in January 1931 and has always been located in the town of Durham and part of the Duke University system in North Carolina. Initially, it housed 24 young female students who are aspiring to become nurses under the guidance of Bessie Baker, who acted as dean, and Ann Henshaw Gardiner as instructor.

Despite being deemed as new and young in the industry of educating nurses, the Duke School of Nursing has proven its excellence in the said field by being one of the very first nursing schools who are able to award BSN degrees to students in the 1930s and contributed a lot in maintaining a standard and outstanding curriculum for the baccalaureate nursing program. Also, the Duke School of Nursing has also spearheaded the post graduate programs for nursing in the late 1950s; and at present, it still remains to perform well as evidenced by ranking 15th in a survey of nursing programs at graduate level which was done in 2007.

At present, the Duke School of Nursing is offering nursing degrees at the baccalaureate level, and graduate programs such as masters of science, certificate for post-master’s, doctor of philosophy in nursing, doctoral in the nursing practice and even post doctoral degrees. Additional programs offered by the Duke School of Nursing are the informatics specialty which is intended to help not only nurses but other members of the health care team in utilizing the new technologies in providing better patient care and management; and a special program for nurses who are planning to render nursing care in the military setting.

The Duke School of Nursing maintains its desire to provide the best quality of nursing education through ensuring that the members of the faculty, the curriculum for nursing programs, and the facilities in the school are able to facilitate the understanding of the different dimensions of nursing care; focusing on promoting health, preventing illness, and assisting individuals towards their recovery. At the same time, the Duke School of Nursing makes sure that the ratio of student to the teacher is small enough to maintain collegial relationships and provide focus to students.

Moreover, the distance learning programs of the Duke School of Nursing allows individuals who are working full time to do their jobs while studying. The affiliations, projects of the alumni association, and the internal fiscal management of the Duke School of Nursing has helped in providing financial aid to willing and deserving students.

The Duke School of Nursing contributions do not only end in being able to become a leader in teaching nursing but it continues to look for more innovative methods in teaching, facilitating the transfer of knowledge from the classroom to the real clinical setting, and further research to improve the delivery of care and services to patients.

A student of the Duke School of Nursing even said that the institution does not only provide knowledge to be used in the job but also in making people realize their dreams and contribute to health care for humanity.

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