Nursing

This introductory course focuses on central concepts essential to the student’s evolving knowledge base. The concepts involved in this course include, but are not limited to, historical perspectives of nursing, legal and ethical boundaries, critical thinking, cultural and spiritual influences, psychosocial nursing interventions, and fundamentals of scientific inquiry. It also introduces the student to the basic pharmacology concepts.

This course focuses on the integration of cognitive and psychomotor domains of nursing practice. It introduces the students to the use of the nursing process as central to all nursing actions. Classroom, laboratory, and clinical experiences are provided to enable the student to acquire basic skills that focus on the self-care requisites of the adult.

This course focuses on the interactional process and components of communication. Factors facilitating therapeutic communication, as well as challenges, special client needs and barriers to effective communication, are examined. A practice component focuses on the use of therapeutic skills, attending skills and responding skills essential in establishing and maintaining effective nurse-client relationships while implementing the nursing process. Students will continue focusing on the psychosocial, physiological, and socio-cultural needs of clients.

This course provides the student with the opportunity to develop skills in the conversion of metric, apothecary and household dosages, and the mathematical skills necessary to compute medication dosages, calculate intravenous therapy flow rates, and to calculate advanced IV medication dosages for safe client care. A practice component focuses on supervised medication dosage calculations for adults and children, IV therapy flow rate calculations, and calculation of advanced IV medication dosages in compliance with client rights.

This course is designed to expand the basic knowledge and skills the student has mastered in Fundamentals/MS 1, with emphasis on selected psychosocial, physiological, and sociocultural needs and deficits of the client. Emotional and behavioral responses during the process of maturation (throughout the life cycle) are examined. Aspects of Adult Health experiences are studied and analyzed. The nursing process approach is further developed in the classroom and clinical settings, as well as the nursing interventions and skills specific to these states.

This course is designed to expand the basic knowledge and skills the student has mastered in Fundamentals/MS 1, with emphasis on selected psychosocial, physiological, and sociocultural needs and deficits of the client. Emotional and behavioral responses during the process of maturation (throughout the life cycle) are examined. Aspects of Pediatric Health experiences are studied and analyzed. The nursing process approach is further developed in the classroom and clinical settings, as well as the nursing interventions and skills specific to these states.

This course provides a greater depth of theoretical knowledge with emphasis on those health deficits which interfere with the patients’ ability to manage and negotiate increasingly complex self- care needs. Adult health experiences are studied and analyzed. Students will be involved in active learning during the theoretical component of this course. The nursing process is used as a framework for identification and intervention in selected patient situations. Correlated clinical experience includes opportunities for the student to continue focusing on psychosocial, physiological, and sociocultural needs of patients.

This course focuses on concepts basic to psychiatric-mental health nursing including neurobiology, therapeutic communication, cultural diversity, spirituality, family dynamics, loss and grieving, stress and coping, crisis intervention, violence, abuse, psychiatric disorders, and community resources. Mental health issues across the lifespan are explored. The course introduces specialized assessment and communication skills necessary for the care of the individual experiencing situational and maturational stressors as well as mental illness. Clinical experiences provide the student with the opportunity to develop assessment skills, communication skills, cultural awareness, nursing process, critical thinking skills, teaching skills, and collaborative skills in acute in-patient, chemical dependency, outpatient, and adolescent units.

This course focuses on nursing actions to meet adult and child human responses within a family-centered setting. The student is introduced to the needs of family while emphasis is placed on the developmental stages of the newborn and the health needs of newborns and childbearing females. This course prepares the student to assume the role of provider of care for childbearing females and neonates. The clinical experience includes participation and observation in a variety of maternal/child settings, including antepartum, labor and delivery, postpartum and newborn nursery units.

This course is structured to assist the student to synthesize theoretical concepts in the formulation of inclusive nursing care plans for patients with multidimensional interdisciplinary self-care deficits. Emphasis is placed on advanced nursing interventions for selected groups of patients with complex medical-surgical health deficits. Correlated clinical experience includes opportunities for the student to continue focusing on psychosocial, physiological, and sociocultural needs of patients.

This comprehensive course addresses the current nursing trends and issues that define the practice of nursing. A broad variety of contemporary issues are explored, including legal and ethical values, research and evidence-based practice, work-related aspects of nursing such as unions and collective bargaining, as well as economic and political issues affecting health care today. The role of the nurse as provider of care, manager of care, and member within the discipline of nursing is further defined and studied. The student will develop a sense of accountability, develop critical thinking skills, and learn to formulate a basic legal-ethical framework for responsible decision-making in nursing practice.