Hosted by the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, the Nursing Science and Health-Care Leadership Graduate Degree program is composed of faculty from across campus with expertise in nursing, medicine, health informatics, nutrition, biostatistics, public health and other fields. A graduate group allows the School of Nursing to leverage the university's strengths in interdisciplinary learning, innovative technology, state-of-the-art evidence-based practice, contemporary leadership and management training.

Click the links below to read more about some of the unique courses offered through the Nursing Science and Health-Care Leadership program.


Love of sciences leads to life of teaching

Shana Ruggenberg, the director of the Mater’s Entry Program in Nursing, leads a classroom discussion with students.As a nurse, Shana Ruggenberg found an interest in teaching other nurses. That passion led her to earn her education degrees and where she is today, leading the school’s Master’s Entry Program in Nursing.


The science of caring

Teresa Thetford with studentsMeet the new physician assistant program director, Teresa Thetford. An intrigue in science led Teresa to the physician assistant (P.A.) profession. A passion to prepare future providers landed her in academia.


Curriculum shifts in health care education

The school’s faculty share commitment to achieve impact through teaching, research and practiceNew curriculum framework prepares Doctor of Nursing Practice students to think holistically and primes them to improve current systems of care. Concept-based curriculum begins the first day of online courses.


The school’s faculty share commitment to achieve impact through teaching, research and practice

The school’s faculty share commitment to achieve impact through teaching, research and practiceMore than 55 faculty from various disciplines make up the educational team at the School of Nursing. They bring expertise from multiple backgrounds to prepare students as future health care leaders. Faculty bring current clinical expertise, nursing-science research leadership and a commitment to change the status quo.


Signing up to innovate, suiting up to be the first

Signing up to innovate, suiting up to be the firstThe inaugural class in the new Doctor of Nursing Practice Family Nurse Practitioner Degree Program has the unique opportunity to help shape the new program for future students.


Simulating reality

Simulating realityA team of actors and high-tech simulation suites bring to life real situations that prepare nursing students for complex and emotionally charged situations they can expect to experience as nurses.


Changing thinking to improve outcomes

Changing thinking to improve outcomesThe new Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree Program is built on a model of innovative practice. Program director Kathryn Sexson discusses how the school plans to inspire students to integrate innovation in their practice.


Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree provides ‘extra power of voice’

Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree provides ‘extra power of voice’

Long-time family nurse practitioner Laura Van Auker shares her journey to become a nurse practitioner (N.P) and then earn a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. Although skeptical at first, she discovered the advanced degree allowed her to make a broader difference in patient outcomes, a bigger impact on the next generation of N.P.s and the chance to be heard in the policy arena.


Why a Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree?

Why a Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree?

As a family nurse practitioner, Chris de Belen-Wilson manages the totality of a patient’s care. To do so, she says she needs to better understand what’s happening for patients outside of the clinical setting. A clinician educator at the School of Nursing, Chris shares her story of why she seeks nursing’s highest practice degree, the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP).


Humility serves as cornerstone of diversity, inclusion

Equity in health starts with fresh look at assumptions

New Doctor of Nursing Practice program provides foundation for future providers to look at data through lens of health disparities to break down barriers and advance health care equity for the future. Students, and their perspectives, will further the vision.


What is nurse leadership?

Kathryn Sexson

Leadership is a core value woven throughout all the graduate-degree programs at the School of Nursing. But how is leadership taught? What exactly does that mean? Two faculty discuss both the importance of the development of nurse leaders and how those skills are woven into the curriculum.


Going global

Kenya Van Aukern showing photos to her friend

Laura Van Auker’s partnership and teaching at the University of Nairobi School of Nursing led to new collaborations benefiting family nurse practitioner and physician assistant students here at the UC Davis School. A Food as Medicine course prepares students to enhance multicultural dietary counseling skills and strengthen their cultural humility.


Simulating a continuum of care

Amy Nichols

A Q & A with simulation expert Amy Nichols explores the use of high-tech simulation suites in health professions education. She discusses how simulation ensures students experience situations to become compassionate, competent and knowledgeable care providers.


Faculty move courses online

Faculty move courses online

Now, 10 months into remote learning, School of Nursing faculty continue to adopt technologies to fit online education to ensure students successfully adapt, and thrive, in virtual environments.


Helping make dreams come true

Helping make dreams come true

Family nurse practitioner program director Kathryn Sexson says something special is happening at the UC Davis nursing school where an interprofessional faculty team collaborate to support and mentor future providers.


Future nurses design tools to help smokers quit

Future nurses design tools to help smokers quit

Former smokers and tobacco treatment experts partner with nursing students to design innovative high-tech solutions to stop tobacco use as part of the Technology and Innovations in Health Care course. The course is designed for nursing students to think creatively about the practice, process and delivery of health care.


Understanding learning before teaching

Understanding learning before teaching

The Health Professions Educator Graduate Academic Certificate Program prepares graduate students at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis as clinical instructors and academicians. Participants study the science of learning to better understand the many different ways people learn as well as a variety of method in teaching to meet those varying needs.


Nursing students experience poverty

Nursing students experience poverty

Master’s Entry Program in Nursing students participated in a four-hour simulation to better understand what it is like to live in poverty. The experience provides future nurses a glimpse of the barriers many people face in trying to access health care services.


Learning goes on the road

Learning goes on the road

Graduate students in medicine and nursing, local community members, and faculty and staff from the UC Davis School of Medicine, the UC Davis Program in Public Health and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis, took a road trip down Highway 99 to learn about the history and people of California’s Central Valley.


Leadership in Health Care

Leadership in Health Care

Leadership development is a core element featured throughout the programs at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis and woven into every aspect of the school’s curriculum. In their first year of study, all students complete a unique leadership course that provides an in-depth look at the specific challenges of leadership in health care, both at the health system and policy levels.


Partnering with providers in Humboldt County

Partnering with providers in Humboldt County

The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis partners with health organizations and providers in Humboldt County to provide expanded rural clinical experiences for physician assistant and nurse practitioner students.


Community Connections

From the start of their graduate education, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis students solve health-care challenges while immersed in local and regional organizations. Purposefully developed to differ from other nursing fieldwork courses, the year-long Community Connections course partners students with a community mentor to research and implement a system-wide solution. “This course requires students to take risks, to break out of comfort zones,” said Deborah Ward, associate dean for academics for the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. “Students are embedded within an agency and they get their hands messy — so to speak — to create a pathway to change. For some students, the topic is not within their expertise, and that’s OK because we want them to forge partnerships with those who are the experts and learn how to facilitate change.”


Improving quality in health care

Redesigning health-care systems to be safer, more effective and more efficient is complex work that is more fully understood when health-care professionals actually engage with quality improvement efforts in the settings where care is delivered and as part of interprofessional teams. For that reason, the new Improving Quality in Health Care course piloted in 2012-13 at the UC Davis schools of health employs a learn-by-doing approach in which students actively test and analyze ongoing quality improvement interventions in the field. “You have to be operating in a real, working health-care environment to fully understand what your specific quality improvement challenges are,” said Debra Bakerjian, one of the co-creators of the course.


Methods for teaching nursing and health sciences

For the first time, graduate students in nursing programs across the University of California system learned together as part of a hybrid—online and in-person—course led by the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. Graduate nursing students from UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC San Francisco participated in the course, Methods for Teaching Nursing and Health Sciences: Assessment/Evaluation of Learning, during the 2013 winter quarter.


Taking a transdisciplinary, interprofessional approach to reducing cancer, health disparities

Graduate nursing and medical students came together in a unique cancer care course offered for the first time at UC Davis this year as part of the health system’s commitment to transcend professional boundaries to improve health. Complex health-care problems are solved through collaborative efforts that most readily include multidisciplinary professionals. The 2009 launch of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis — a school dedicated to ensuring health professionals learn multiple perspectives to work and communicate as teams — was a significant step toward the accomplishment of that interprofessional goal. The cancer care course was one of the first interprofessional courses provided during the school’s inaugural year of classes.