The brand video showcases Gardner‑Webb University's Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program as a flexible, hybrid offering designed for working nurses and military personnel. Speakers highlight that the curriculum blends online coursework with on‑campus skills workshops, simulation labs that are recorded for self‑reflection, and live patient actors to mimic real‑world clinical environments. The program requires prior RN experience, ensuring a solid nursing foundation, and focuses on both passing the certification exam and delivering competent primary care. Faculty are described as highly supportive and accessible through multiple channels. A holistic approach to patient care—addressing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs—is emphasized. The video concludes with pride in the high caliber of graduates produced by the program.
Chapters
The Family Nurse Practitioner program at Gardner-Webb is for students who are actually still professionals working in their field. I, as a nurse, I'm still working full-time. This program in itself is very flexible to my schedule. It's definitely doable.
It's very important that our students come to campus. We do a lot of skills workshops, and we have awesome skills labs where the students can practice.
The simulations labs that they have here where they record you, and they like for you to reflect upon the experience that you have. In that way, you can just, you know, critique yourself and better yourself that way.
We do have live patient actors that come in simulating that real-world environment. My approach to teaching is 2 things. One, at the end, you ultimately have to be able to pass the certification exam. The second is when I walk into a room one day, and you're gonna take care of my kids or my parents, I want to know that you know what you're talking about. A family nurse practitioner is really trained for primary care practice. For our admission requirements to our nurse practitioner programs, we do require some experience. We feel that that's important to have that foundation as a registered nurse.
I'm a member of the Air National Guard. I chose this program because they agreed to work with me because I knew I had a deployment coming up. I was actually in the Middle East during part of the time that I was going to school. Having the flexibility is paramount because you're not having to be on campus all the time. It would just be absolutely impossible to do otherwise. The nice thing about being a hybrid where it's not totally online is you actually get the hands-on and you get the different simulation labs and you get that one-on-one interaction with the faculty too.
I work at Atrium Health Shelby Women's Care, so I'm a nurse practitioner in women's health. The reason I chose Gardner-Webb was because I really like the way that they approach their patients from a holistic approach. Good. How's everything going? It's going good. Any new changes? They didn't focus just on the physical aspects of the patient, but also we looked at the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual aspects as well. The faculty are so very supportive. It's more online than it is face-to-face. They're always very accessible through email, And via telephone or via conference if you need that as well. I would definitely say that the FNP program at Gardner-Webb, they're always looking for opportunities to help you improve. If you need any specific help, they're there to help you regardless of what you need.
I'm really pleased with the caliber of our graduates.
