The graduate school at Oita University of Nursing and Health Sciences was established in 2002 with the foundation of a Master's degree program in nursing. In April, 2004, a doctoral program in nursing was established in the graduate school. The main objective of our Master's program is to educate advanced professional nurses and midwives. The graduates of the Master's program are expected to take a leadership role in nursing research and practice. The main objective of the doctoral program is to generate human resources in the field of nursing by nurturing and developing researchers and professors of nursing science.

Education in our graduate school is characterized by both day and night instruction, small class sizes, and mentor-group instruction for each individual student. This system allows students working as nurses and midwives during the day to study for their degrees after work. Three mentors supervise each student's research from an interdisciplinary point of view, even when a student wants to focus on a specific theme of nursing science. The expertise of our mentors ranges over the areas of biostatistics, physiology, biology, environmental health, and sports sciences.

In 2008, three new Master's majors started for students seeking qualification as professional midwives, nurse practitioners (NP), and Certified Nurse Specialists (CNS) in maternity nursing. The NP major was the first graduate school course for educating NPs in Japan, and it is expected that this will be the first step in the process of establishing a national qualification system for nurse practitioners in Japan. The objectives of the new majors are to train highly educated midwives, highly qualified NPs and highly qualified CNSs who can contribute to clinical practice in medical facilities with insufficient numbers of physicians, because of current estimates of future shortages of medical doctors in local areas.

Research in Nursing Science Major
Students choosing this major must complete a Master's thesis. There are three specialty areas for research: fundamental nursing, developmental nursing, and public health nursing. This major is characterized by day and night instruction, small class sizes, and mentor-group education for individual students. Many working nurses and midwives seek further education at the graduate level because of their commitment to the profession of nursing and their desire for career advancement. Day and night classes enable them to study in a graduate program while working. Mentor-group education allows students to pursue their research from an interdisciplinary point of view, even if their focus is on a specific theme of nursing science. In this major three mentors supervise each student's research. For example, a student doing comparative research on the fatigue of nurses and other medical personnel would receive the advice of a mentor specializing in physiology, making it possible to investigate fatigue from a physiological approach in addition to using a survey questionnaire. Students also receive statistical support and use statistical software such as SPSS, SAS and S-PLUS to process experimental data and survey data since measured data should be interpreted from a statistical view.

Professional Midwife Major
There is a midwifery course in the undergraduate school of this university for training nursing students as midwives. The main objective of the midwifery Master's major is the further education of currently practicing midwives as highly advanced professionals capable of taking responsibility for the out-patient clinics of maternity hospitals. These highly trained and educated professional midwives are expected to be capable of diagnosing pregnancy and caring for women having normal deliveries during the entire period of pregnancy and puerperium. At present, there is a shortage of obstetricians in Japan. These highly advanced professional midwives are expected to improve the current situation.

Nurse Practitioner Major
In 2008, our university established a course for the training of advanced practice nurses in the Master's degree program. This was the first graduate school major course for educating NPs in Japan, and it aims to develop advanced practice nurses in the fields of pediatrics and geriatrics. Students are taught a wide range of in-depth knowledge and skills, including physical assessment and pharmacology. The major is characterized by long credit hours of clinical training, which are required for learning from medical practitioners in hospitals. To facilitate the education of working nurses who want to become NPs, our university established a long-term credit system for students, who are able to take classes for up to four years at the normal rate of tuition.

Certified Nurse Specialist (CNS) in Maternity Nursing Major
The Certified Nurse Specialist (CNS) license is certified by the Japanese Nursing Association and is granted after advanced graduate level education and clinical experience have been attained. Expertise in specific areas of nursing is presently required in order to increase the quality of nursing in Japan and to respond to the diverse health needs of the people. In this major a nurse is trained as a CNS in maternity nursing, and is able to acquire a wide scope of capability in areas such as consultation, coordination, teaching and clinical nursing research.

Students entering this program must complete a doctoral dissertation. They must get their dissertation accepted for publication in an academic journal in order for the review and approval process of their doctorate to commence. One of the characteristics of our doctoral program is the possibility of admission for non-nursing students who do not have national licensure as nurses.

Expertise in research can be attained in the areas of biology and physiology, environmental toxicology, sports sciences, radiological health and biology, and biostatistics and informatics in our doctoral program.

The fundamental concept of our doctoral program is Evidence-Based Nursing (EBN), in which an experimental and interventional approach provides evidence for research in nursing science, and results in reasonable clinical practice. To accumulate evidence, mutual collaboration is necessary among nurses and various other human resources.