Course Description
This course is for Registered Psychiatric Nurses who have graduated from Douglas College and who choose to enter the nursing program in Semester Four. Students are introduced through classroom, laboratory, and online learning activities to the process of critical reflection and to concepts associated with the Health courses in the first year of the nursing program, the Professional Growth courses in Semesters One and Three, and the Healing course in Semester Three.
Course Content
In this course, concepts associated with the Health courses in the first year of the nursing program, and the Professional Growth courses in Semesters One and Three, and the Healing I course in Semester Three are discussed. A list of course concepts and essential content is presented below. Concepts are addressed in relation to the four foundational concepts (ways of knowing, personal meaning, time/transitions, culture/context), integrating the metaconcepts, health promotion and caring. The content related to the foundational concepts varies depending on the interests, choices and experiences of course participants.
Program Philosophy
- Philosophy
- Phenomenology
- Humanism
- Feminism (in-depth discussion)
- gender issues (introduction)
- Critical Social Theory
- Caring
- Health Promotion
- Foundational Concepts
- ways of knowing
- personal meaning
- time/transitions
- culture/context
Professional Growth: Self as Learner
- Learning
- learning styles
- program assumptions and expectations
- skills, i.e. critical thinking; analysis; critique; writing, including reflective writing; time management
- Lifestyle
- healthy lifestyle
- change theory; change process
- lifestyle change
- health maintenance
Professional Growth: Self as Nurse
- Nursing
- a guide for decision-making
- Social construction of nursing
- historical perspective – including feminist perspectives on the gendered history of nursing
- personal perception
- societal views and expectations
- current trends and issues
- Professionalism
- responsibility/accountability
- professional bodies
- ethical codes
- standards or practice
- legal issues
- commitment
Professional Growth: The Nursing Profession
- Professionalism
- code of ethics
- legal statutes governing nursing practice
- standards of practice and ethical issues
- evidence-based practice
- Nursing Organizations
- professional association
- nursing unions
- Quality Improvement (Introduction)
- issues e.g. continuous quality improvement
- quality assurances
- Education
- credentialing
- educational preparation
- informatics
- Teaching/Learning
- theoretical perspectives in teaching/learning including paradigm shifts
- teaching across the lifespan
- Care
Facilitating Health in Families
- Family
- theory
- family patterns, roles and role change
- Health promotion
- beliefs, values, perception
- determinants of health
- family’s experience with chronic health challenge
Episodic Health Challenge
- Healing
- restorative and spiritual – following surgery, accident, childbirth, psychological trauma
- Anxiety/fear
- fear related to the unknown, hospitalization, separation, death and disfigurement
- Acute Pain
- labour and postpartum
- ischemic
- Transition/change
- inflammation (injury, arthritis)
- obstruction (renal, biliary, bowel, respiratory, vascular)
- degeneration (muscular-skeletal)
- balance/imbalance (fluid and electrolyte, hormonal)
- childbearing/neonatal
- Unpredictability
- ambiguity, unfamiliarity, instability, unknown, technology
- complications of illness, surgery and childbearing
- unpredictable behaviour (aggression)
- response to therapy
- Control
- empowerment
- altered mobility
- invasion
- Vulnerability
- determinants of vulnerability (fatigue, stress, social condition)
- invasion (acute infection, allergy, invasive procedures)
- Trust
- Context
- Energy/Fatigue
- energy as a resource
- fatigue experience
Psychomotor Skills
Psychomotor skills are organized around the following themes:
- Assessment
- health promotion framework
- Hygiene and Comfort
- Therapeutic Agents/Modalities
- Asepsis
- Mobility
- Irrigation/Drainage
Learning Activities
It is the faculty's intent to collaborate with students in identifying individual learning needs and to facilitate the optimal use of resources to meet these needs. This includes opportunities for skill review and assessment. It is also intended that a caring relationship develops between course participants, modeling the type of relationship that nurses are to develop with their clients. An understanding that caring involves challenge, criticism and nurturing is promoted. Course concepts are addressed through classroom, laboratory, and on-line learning activities designed to actively engage students in achieving understanding.
Students are encouraged to reflect on and analyze personal and nursing practice experience as they relate to course concepts. Critical and independent thinking are emphasized. Students are to have beginning experience with using the computer as a tool to manage information. Students are encouraged to engage in active dialogue with others and to develop their ability to communicate their ideas and feelings in a non-threatening and confident manner. Respect for different points of view is emphasized.
Means of Assessment
Course evaluation is consistent with Douglas College Curriculum Development and Approval policy. Respect for individual choices and an openness to negotiation guide decisions about methods of evaluation.
Evaluation is based on the following required elements: a written paper, skill assessment, a written reflective journal. The final mark may be based on other methods of evaluation.
This is a graded course. A passing grade (65%) is required in order to progress to the regular nursing program.
Learning Outcomes
In this course, students have opportunities to:
- reflect upon the role of the professional nurse especially in relation to professional standards and the role of the nurse as educator and advocate
- develop an awareness of the philosophy, beliefs and values that form the basis of the nursing program
- explore their own self-concepts in relation to learning, health, and nursing
- examine the principles and practice of health promotion
- examine different theoretical perspectives of the family and nurses' work in relation to family
- gain insights into families' experiences with chronic and episodic health challenges and the concepts of caring and health promotion in these contexts
- develop skill in health and family assessment including obstetrical and newborn assessment
Textbook Materials
Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students
- Praxis Experience
- Personal Experience
- Previous Nursing Practice Experience
- Textbooks and Materials to be purchased by the student
- A list of recommended textbooks and materials will be presented to students at the beginning of the course.
- Other Resources
- A variety of nursing practice textbooks
- Selected journal articles, and professional and government documents
- Selected AV and computer software
- Nursing laboratory