A Path to Excellence: the Columbia Experience

Mary Mundinger

This book, written by the Dean Emeritus of Columbia School of Nursing, follows the evolution of Advanced Practice Nursing as a successful and well-respected model of independent nursing practice. It describes a dramatic period of 25 years during which the author rescued a failing school of nursing at Columbia University and led it through a period of struggle that, through strong and carefully constructed planning, led Advanced Practice Nursing to a new level of authority and education.

It depicts Columbia's leadership in establishing CAPNA, a financially successful independent nursing practice, and uses the case study of Columbia School of Nursing to illustrate how nursing leadership used leverage and political acumen to bring together disparate and unusual partners to support its mission to restructure the APN model.