Nursing Clinical 1 NURS 1030

Course learning outcomes / competencies

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Provide professional caring based on knowledge and skills.
• Pursue shared meaning by communicating effectively and professionally. Develop collaborative partnerships with members of the health care team.
• Begin to integrate systematic inquiry into practice by: considering multiple sources of nursing knowledge; recognizing the uniqueness of each client and/or client situation and responding with appropriate clinical judgment; raising questions about nursing practice to explore alternatives; reflecting on own nursing practice.
• Commit to learning as a way of developing professional practice. Monitor own practice, identifies and takes responsibility for learning needs and with support acts upon learning needs. Continue to recognize and discuss safe nursing practice.
• With instructor guidance, use creative leadership within collaborative practice.
• Implements technical skills and the use of technology competently and with increasing confidence.

Learning Process Threads

Professionalism

• Students continue to develop an understanding of the professional nurse’s role. They develop professionalism by participating in learning partnerships with peers, nursing instructors, and multidisciplinary agency staff.
• Students continue to use reasoning and reflection in the pursuit of professional nursing attitudes, judgments, knowledge and skill. Students demonstrate honesty, integrity, responsibility, accountability, and moral commitment consistent with the Canadian Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Registered Nurses (2008) and BCIT Policy 5104: Academic Integrity and Appeals (2009) as they provide nursing care.
• Students continue to develop professional competencies by applying assessment knowledge, continuing to analyze data and developing care plans, and continuing to make clinical judgments and act on those judgments. They carry out discharge planning and continue to recognize the influence of context.
• Students continue to acknowledge that the client is the primary focus of care as they provide safe, humanistic care and service in the public interest. Students incorporate illness/injury prevention (post op complications) and begin to promote rehabilitation related to surgical procedures. With assistance students carry out clinical techniques and organize and prioritize their nursing care. Students continue to evaluate the care they provide.

Communication

• Students develop professional communication competencies by using active listening, assertiveness, and inquiry skills.
• They use self-reflection to develop their interpersonal capacities and communication skills to create shared meaning and build trust in relationships with clients, peers, nursing instructors and agency staff.
• Students become more aware of the influence of context on interactions and identify attitudes and skills that facilitate or block shared meaning for self and others.
• They apply knowledge to anticipate client concerns and to provide preoperative, post operative and discharge teaching.
• Students validate and share information about care with clients, instructors and agency staff.
• Students validate and share information about care with clients, instructors and agency staff.
• Students thoughtfully discuss clinical experiences in debriefing sessions and in written assignments.
• Students word process assignments including self-evaluations.

Systematic Inquiry

• Systematic inquiry involves the processes of critical thinking, decision making and research. Students access a variety of academic sources for information.
• To develop critical thinking, students continue to recognize assumptions, the importance of context, alternate perspectives and continue to be reflectively sceptical (Brookfield, 1987).
• Students continue to reason critically about assessment data, patient concerns and nursing care.
• They engage in self-reflection through journaling and dialogue with nursing students and instructors. This reflective questioning, thinking and evidence search is used continually to develop approaches to health concerns.
• To develop decision making, students reflect about nursing care by appreciating the evidence base, recognizing real and potential risks associated with their care and making judgements about their care.
• With the assistance of the instructor and the RN, students begin to make clinical judgments, connections and decisions to achieve answers.
• To develop their research ability, students continue to research appropriate and relevant literature that informs the nursing care they provide and the judgments they make.

Professional Growth

• Professional growth is a process of self-inquiry and self-direction that facilitates learning.
• Students continue to take responsibility for their learning and for relevant clinical preparation.
• They continue to reflect on their practice, recognize their limitations and seek assistance.
• Students are responsible and accountable to attain and maintain a safe level of skill performance. With instructor assistance, they continue to self-evaluate, assess learning gaps, reflect on these gaps and why they might exist. Students continue to identify learning needs and seek learning opportunities.
• Students continue to develop self-discipline, initiative, and commitment to nursing, and a passion for nursing practice. They continue to share knowledge and experience with their clinical group.
• Students learn to assume responsibility and accountability for their professional growth.

Leadership

• Leadership is a process that evolves through a nurse’s professional life. Leadership enhances students’ potential as leaders and followers. Students use self awareness to transcend self interest as they focus on individualized patient care. They continue to form connections with the health care team and question the status quo. Students further develop assertiveness skills as they explain their roles/abilities and discuss patient care issues and concerns with health care professionals.
• Students integrate nursing ethics into their practice. Within leadership students continue to be self directed and to take risks. They continue to recognize their own strengths and the contribution of others.
• Students continue to demonstrate independence, initiative, and critical thinking. They are organized to care for two acute surgical patients including setting appropriate priorities for care. They continue to demonstrate confidence at the bedside, are able to set limits on inappropriate requests and intervene when patient safety is jeopardized. Students advocate for patients when patients are unable to do so for themselves. They are continuing to understand nursing leadership within their context of practice.

Technology-as-Practice

• In nursing, technology-as-practice (TAP) is the way of knowing, being and doing (Franklin, 1990) in the health care context that enhances client care. As TAP and information & communication technology (ICT) (CNA, 2009) evolve, students begin to learn the impact of these activities on clients, health care workers and the health care system. TAP and ICT may include techniques, skills and health informatics. TAP and ICT are influenced by culture, socially accepted practices and values and they also influence culture, socially accepted practice and values.
• Students use information from the agency health information system to provide nursing care. Students use electronic technology for assessments and nursing care (vital sign monitoring devices, bladder scanners, dopplers, automated medication systems, blood glucose monitoring devices and intravenous infusion pumps). They may use own electronic devices or online resources to access information to support their nursing care during their clinical experiences.
• Simulation laboratory experiences may be used to apply course content, including assessment and interventions for a client scenario.

Effective as of Winter 2015