NRSG

Emphasis is placed on the role delineation for the LPN/VN to RN. This course includes a review of the nursing process, critical thinking, and clinical decision making for use with medical surgical nursing and pharmacological concepts.

This didactic and laboratory experiential course encompasses the essential components for the professional nurse to provide patients with a comprehensive health assessment for diverse patients across the lifespan. The framework for quality and safe nursing assessments developed from this course are the building blocks for identifying alterations in health in accordance with professional nursing practice. Further increasing their understanding of the nursing process, students will complete health histories and physical assessments, discuss specific risk factors and determinants of health across the lifespan, and elaborate on poor health outcomes.

The Fundamentals of Nursing Practice II course continues the student’s introduction to professional nursing in healthcare systems. In this course, there will be an emphasis on performing basic nursing skills using proper techniques and measures to promote safe, quality client-centered care. Additionally, students will demonstrate therapeutic communication in patient care. Students will also be introduced to the essential concepts of clinical judgement and critical thinking in the healthcare environment. Upon completion of this course, students will have a strong foundation to build upon in their nursing school experience.

This course provides the basic concepts of pharmacology that will be threaded throughout the program, and eventually into professional practice. As a fundamental component to nursing practice, the emphasis on safe, quality, and accurate medication administration will be a focus of this course in both the didactic and laboratory environments. Additionally, medication classifications, ethical decision making, and the legal aspects to medication administration will be explored in detail. Prototype drugs will be used to enhance understanding of each category of medications. In the laboratory, medication dosage calculations as well as the safe administration of medications will be practiced.

The Fundamentals of Nursing Practice course is an introduction to professional nursing in healthcare systems. There will be an exploration of the scope of nursing practice as well as the many roles of the professional nurse. Innovative teaching will focus on providing an introduction to basic comfort and client care concepts important to nursing practice. Emphasis is placed on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to provide client-centered, safe, quality care while reducing risk potential for diverse patients across the lifespan. The theoretical foundations for basic psychomotor nursing skills as well as therapeutic communication skills are presented, and students are given opportunities to demonstrate these skills in a clinical setting. An introduction to the nursing process provides a decision-making framework to assist students in developing effective clinical judgment and critical thinking skills. As the title implies, this course provides the foundation for students to have a complete programmatic learning experience resulting in a well-rounded and prepared professional nurse.

This course focuses on the nursing process and care of clients across the lifespan who are experiencing cognitive, mental and behavioral conditions while maintaining therapeutic communication. Emphasis is placed on management of clients facing emotional and psychological stressors and/or addiction issues. Promoting and maintaining the mental health of individuals and families is also considered. Concepts of crisis intervention, therapeutic communication, anger management, and coping skills are integrated while reducing risk potential throughout the course. The community as a resource for care and support services is addressed. Clinical experiences provide students opportunities to apply theoretical concepts and implement safe client-centered care to clients with mental health issues in various settings.

The course focuses on the specialized health care needs of the childbearing family. A family-centered approach using the nursing process is applied in the didactic and clinical setting to increase patient outcomes, promote healthy growth and development, and increase understanding of family dynamics. In this course, the disease processes of the family unit are explored in order to promote and maintain the health of mother and neonate. Students develop the necessary knowledge base and learn the importance of interprofessional collaboration in order to best provide quality care and teaching for pregnancy, delivery, and newborn nursing.

This course focuses on the specialized health care needs of the pediatric patient. A family-centered approach using the nursing process is applied in the didactic and clinical setting to increase patient outcomes, promote healthy growth and development of the pediatric patient, and increase understanding of family dynamics. In this course, the disease processes of the pediatric patient are explored in order to promote and maintain the health of pediatric patients. Students develop the necessary knowledge base and learn the importance of interprofessional collaboration in order to best provide quality care and teaching for pediatric patients and the family unit as a whole.

Transition to Professional Practice is a course designed to help guide the students down the pathway to professional nursing practice. The course focuses on current nursing trends, management, and leadership in nursing. As students prepare to enter the complex adaptive system of the nursing workforce, it is essential for them to understand their roles in delegation, priority-setting, and conflict management. Students will apply their knowledge of communication skills, ethical practice, and professional responsibility to further prepare for entry into practice. Additionally, the essential components of understanding state regulations, regulatory bodies, the legalities of practice, and reducing patient and nursing risk will be explored. Clinical and didactic experiences will lead to an application of leadership, delegation, and complex decision-making skills to provide quality outcomes for patients.

This critical thinking course prepares students to analyze the concepts and techniques instrumental to applying critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical judgment to complex situations within the practice of professional nursing. The overall focus of this course is practice readiness – being able to simultaneously process multiple sources of information within the context of today’s patient-centered, outcome-driven, interprofessional healthcare settings. Students are also required to demonstrate communication, documentation, teamwork, and self-management skills as applied to the nursing process. They will use a variety of online and face-to-face experiences to practice recognizing and analyzing cues, prioritizing hypotheses, generating solutions, taking action, and evaluating outcomes. This multidimensional process will prepare students for success on the NCLEX-RN examination and in the real-world of healthcare.

Adult Health Nursing 1 focuses on the professional nurse providing patient-centered care of adults with chronic and/or non-emergent medical and/or surgical health alterations. The learning experience will emphasize the use of the nursing process and quality care principles to reduce risk and increase patient outcomes. Utilizing the building blocks from prior courses, students will expand their knowledge of basic care principles to include nutrition, application of pharmacological concepts, psychosocial, and physiological integrity. Critical thinking will be at the forefront of learning experiences to highlight the role of the nurse in error prevention, prioritization, and delegation. Further, students will explore evidence based practice and interprofessional collaboration as tools to enhance patient outcomes. In the clinical environment, the student is provided opportunities to harness the knowledge gained in the didactic environment in order to promote healthy behaviors and implement safe care to clients.

Students in Adult Health Nursing II will explore patient-centered care for mildly complex (1 or more chronic health alterations), acute care, adult, medical surgical patients in order to increase patient outcomes and decrease risk potential. Applying evidence-based interventions, health education, health promotion, and therapeutic communication will be at the forefront of the students’ didactic and clinical experiences. Students will evaluate the role of the nurse in management, leadership, and delegation in the healthcare setting as well. Adult Health Nursing 2 students will promote healthy behaviors in patients and apply the nursing process using evidence based practice across the lifespan.

This course emphasizes care of adult patients with complex, multisystem alterations in health. There is a strong focus on effective decision making, time management, and organizational skills during the care of extremely complex and challenging health care situations. The use of interprofessional collaboration is highlighted, along with priority setting, making difficult clinical decisions, understanding essential components to legal and ethical practice, and the use of unique and critical health care equipment and technology for complex patients. In the clinical and didactic environment, the concepts of quality, effective, and safe care with a reduction in patient risks will be integrated from content delivery to experiential learning in order to increase patient outcomes.