Anesthetists has followed suit, requiring the DNP (or DNAP-doctor of nurse anesthesia practice) degree for entry-level nurse anesthetist programs by the year 2025. Meanwhile, the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) announced in July 2015 its endorsement of the doctor of nursing practice (DNP) as the required degree for CNS entry into practice by 2030. Nurse practitioners and nurse anesthetists currently practicing with either an MSN or certificate will not be required to obtain the DNP for continued practice. In the United States there are two terminal doctorate degrees in the field of nursing: The doctor of nursing practice (DNP), and the doctor of philosophy (PhD). Previous doctorate level degrees have been, or are in the process of being phased out and converted to one of the two terminal degrees. The doctor of nursing (ND, not to be confused with naturopathic doctor) and the (DrNP) have transitioned into the DNP whereas the doctor of nursing science (DNSc, DNS or DSN) has transitioned into the PhD. The PhD in nursing is generally considered the academic and research-oriented degree, whereas the DNP is the practice-oriented or professional terminal degree. Controversy Afaf I. Meleis and Kathleen Dracup have described the development of DNP courses as "a major mistake for [the] profession of nursing as well as the discipline of nursing knowledge". The required clinical practice hours to be accepted on a DNP course can be as little as zero hours. In other cases where clinical hours are required to gain the DNP, these can include clinical hours undertaken as part of a prior degree. This places the DNP at odds with clinical doctorate degrees which require significant amounts of clinical practice hours. A doctorate of clinical psychology for example encompasses 1.5 years of clinical practice time while a medical doctorate includes around 75 weeks of clinical practice (with further instructions clinical hours required to gain specialty medical licenses). In other words, the DNP degree is increasingly ridiculed in the medical community due to the fact that the schools awarding the degree are often essentially degree mills, accepting nurses with little or no bedside experience, following curricula that address no clinically meaningful material, imparting knowledge in little more than nursing theory purportedly to justify their own existence, brief time required to complete the coursework, and ultimately awarding the title of “doctor,” confusing patients, while dangerously attempting to expand scope of practice of nurses,