The UTC nurse practitioner concentration offers specialty track options in Psychiatric Mental Health, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Adult Gerontology and Family Nurse Practitioner Lifespan. Photo by Angela Foster.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing will launch a new Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) program in fall 2025 to help meet urgent workforce needs across the region and state.
The PMHNP concentration, part of UTC’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, offers two pathways: a full-time, eight-semester post-BSN track for students pursuing a doctoral degree and a five-semester post-graduate certificate for advanced practice registered nurses who already hold a master’s degree. Both pathways require 1,050 hours of supervised clinical experience and prepare students to sit for national board certification.
“There is a mental health crisis unfolding in Tennessee and across the country,” said Dr. Chris Smith, director of the UTC School of Nursing and the University’s chief health affairs officer. “We need more nurse practitioners trained not just in screening and support, but in diagnosing and managing care—especially when it comes to medication management. This program gives us the tools to help address that shortage.”
Smith said that the need for PMHNPs has grown steadily in recent years. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, demand for psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners is expected to increase by 18% nationally by 2030. In Tennessee, data from the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services project significant shortages in nearly every behavioral health profession, including a deficit of more than 1,200 mental health counselors and approximately 800 psychiatrists.
According to a Mental Health America report, Tennessee ranks 46th in the nation for mental health provider access despite being 16th in prevalence of mental illness. The disparity between need and availability is particularly stark for youth. The State of the Child 2022 report found that one in four Tennessee children has a mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral disorder, but the state ranks 47th for youth experiencing a major depressive episode who did not receive mental health services.
“The launch of this program is timely and essential,” Smith said. “Our faculty have worked hard to build something rigorous, evidence-based and responsive to the needs we’re seeing in primary care, emergency departments and counseling centers.”
Mary B. Jackson Assistant Professor Jason Peter, a dual-certified Family and Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, helped spearhead the new concentration. Peter practices as a mental health nurse practitioner and currently teaches mental health courses in both the traditional and accelerated undergraduate nursing programs.
“I have always been an advocate for clients who are underserved and who have difficulty with proper access to health care. Unfortunately, many of those patients also struggle with mental health concerns,” said Peter, a two-time UTC graduate. “Through this program, we want to instill that same passion in our students and give them the tools to provide meaningful care where it’s needed most.”
Peter said the PMHNP track will offer students a much deeper level of training.
“Right now, I’m teaching BSN students who need a general understanding of mental health nursing. But this new concentration will specialize in it,” he said. “It’ll include advanced coursework in counseling techniques, psychiatric diagnosis and psychopharmacology—everything our students will need to become confident, well-rounded mental health providers.
“Being able to bring this program to UTC is overwhelming in the best way. There’s such a need in the community—and across the country—for qualified psychiatric nurse practitioners.”
Dr. Amber Roaché, associate professor and coordinator of UTC’s nurse practitioner concentration, said the new curriculum was developed in response to a dramatic increase in mental health needs following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There have always been mental health issues—depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia—but COVID really exacerbated a lot of what we were seeing,” Roaché explained. “Social isolation took a major toll, and we saw more people seeking help and asking their providers about counseling and treatment options.”
She said that the PMHNP role fills a unique and expanding gap in care by combining therapy and prescriptive authority.
“The psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner is able to provide the counseling, do the screenings and also prescribe the medication,” Roaché said. “They can follow up more frequently than psychiatrists and bridge that space between what a counselor can offer and what a physician is licensed to do. It’s the same kind of niche nurse practitioners have been filling for decades.”
The PMHNP concentration builds on UTC’s expanding DNP program, which includes Family Nurse Practitioner and Adult Gerontology-Acute Care tracks.
Coursework will cover advanced pathophysiology, pharmacology, health assessment, counseling across the lifespan, group and family therapy, and clinical diagnosis and management. Post-graduate certificate students complete the same clinical hours as the full DNP cohort but are not required to complete a scholarly translational research project.
“This concentration is different from the others we offer because it focuses exclusively on mental health across the lifespan—from cradle to grave,” Roaché said.
Roaché also spoke about the broader impact of the PMHNP, especially for current nurse practitioners seeking to expand their scope of practice.
“This is just another groundbreaking program for us,” she said. “It gives DNP students advanced clinical and leadership training at the doctoral level—and for those earning the post-graduate certificate, it opens the door to providing care for more diverse patient populations.
“It’s about expanding knowledge, expanding access and getting more practice-ready providers out into the community.”
Applications are currently being accepted for the first PMHNP DNP cohort, which will begin coursework in August. A post-graduate certificate cohort is expected to start the following academic year.
For more information about the PMHNP and other UTC nurse practitioner programs, visit go.utc.edu/DNP.
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The UTC DNP program’s May 2025 graduating class. Photo courtesy of Dr. Amber Roaché.
