International doctoral education partnership: The first full-time doctoral program for nurses in China

In July 2008, five nurses graduated from the first full-time doctoral program for nurses in China at Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) in Beijing. The purpose of this article is to describe the doctoral program partnership between the Schools of Nursing at PUMC and Johns Hopkins University (Hopkins) in the United States that led to this historic event. The planning, implementation, evaluation, and early outcomes of the program are described to provide a model for rapidly increasing capacity for doctoral education in nursing in countries without sufficient or any doctoral education in nursing. One of the main objectives of this doctoral program partnership was to transition the Chinese University to an independent doctoral program as rapidly as possible. Lessons learned are presented as well as the next steps for this program.