Philosophy of the Nursing Programs

Nursing, a scientific discipline, requires creativity in its execution. The art of nursing lies in the application of concepts and principles of nursing theory to the design of individualized care using the nursing process. The essence of nursing is to provide evidence-based care to our clients in the performance of those activities that contribute to health promotion, resolution of illness, or end-of-life. This is congruent with Nursing’s Social Policy Statement that “nursing is the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual or potential health problems” (American Nurses Association, 2004, p. 10.)

The faculty believes that a person is an integrated being with intrinsic dignity and worth. While possessing common needs, a person is characterized by uniqueness and self-determination. As an open system, an individual is in constant interaction with the environment.

The goal of nursing is to use a humanistic approach to implement therapeutic interventions to assist the individual, family, aggregate, and community in attaining maximum potential for health. Health is viewed as a continuum and is seen as a right of all people, with individual choice as prerequisite. Such choices are determined by pluralistic factors within the internal and external environments. Pluralism encompasses gender and the ethnic, religious, racial, or cultural groups coexisting in society and philosophically reflects the belief that many views of reality are needed to account for all the phenomena of life. In order to meet the needs of a pluralistic society, the professional nurse is committed to standards of the profession and practices autonomously in a variety of settings.

Through its mission, Saint Peter’s College, a Jesuit Catholic, coeducational, liberal arts college in an urban setting, seeks to develop a whole person in preparation for a lifetime of learning, leadership, and service in a diverse and global society. Committed to academic excellence and individual attention, the College provides education, informed by values, primarily in degree-granting programs in the arts, sciences, and business, to resident and commuting students from a variety of backgrounds (Academic Handbook, 2002). The Nursing faculty concurs with this mission.

Education is an ongoing process promoting the development of the total person in intellectual, physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects. The outcome of value-oriented education is an individual secure in his/her own identity with mature values and a strong sense of responsibility. Such a person will possess precision of though, clarity of oral and written expression and appreciation of learning for its own sake.

The faculty believes that the core of learning is change. A change in perception, thinking, feeling, and action is demonstrated through behavior. The teacher is seen as a facilitator who assists learners in the process of discovery. Learners are self-directed adults who integrate experience in a highly individualized fashion. Learning provides the teacher and the learner with the opportunity to test ideas, analyze mistakes, take risks and to foster creativity. The learning process promotes the development of personal reflection, intellectual inquiry, and sound judgment.

Education for nursing must be value-focused, providing guidance for future practice, yet reality-based to prepare practitioners for the current health care system. Nursing education equips the student with cognitive, affective, and psychomotor competencies integral to professional nursing practice. This practice is characterized by accountability, problem solving skills, critical thinking, the ability to synthesize and apply concepts, and to integrate appropriate technology. To be responsive to societal changes, the curricula encourage risk taking and commitment to change. Processes of inquiry enable students to seek options for changes in nursing practice and delivery of health care. The curricula must be flexible to meet individual student needs and facilitate program articulation.

Essential to nursing education at Saint Peter’s College is the provision of a professional collegial milieu for Registered Nurses. In such an environment, the faculty will foster student growth and a commitment to lifelong learning. This is particularly important for the adult learner where acknowledgment of established values, beliefs, and opinions as well as validation of both the life and professional experience each individual brings is perquisite to change. Through the teaching-learning process, faculty and students share commitment, enthusiasm and heightened awareness for significant professional enhancement. This fosters collegial relationships among students and faculty to promote independence and heightened self-esteem. The faculty believes that mentoring supports the nursing profession. Mentoring is viewed as useful and powerful in understanding and advancing nursing practice. It provides access to informal and formal networks of communication, and offers professional growth and stimulation to both the mentor and mentee.

Faculty believes that the BSN is entry into professional nursing practice. The baccalaureate degree prepares a professional nurse in the generalist role. In concurrence with The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice document, faculty believes that nursing practice is built on nursing knowledge, theory, and research. In addition, nursing practice derives knowledge from a wide range of other fields and disciplines. The adaptation and application of this knowledge is appropriate to professional practice (AACN, 1998).

Graduate education builds on the knowledge and skills acquired at the baccalaureate level and prepares one for nursing practice in a specialty and for advanced practice nursing. The Master of Science in Nursing Program at Saint Peter’s College affords students the opportunity to broaden their theoretical foundation of nursing and to acquire the depth and breadth of advanced knowledge for expert practice in nursing case management, for the role of nurse administrator and for advanced practice nursing in the primary care of adults as an adult nurse practitioner.

Faculty believe that in light of changes in the health care industry and with the ever evolving managed care environment, masters level professional nurses must be prepared to fill the leadership requirements for roles in case management, advanced practice and administration.

Nursing case management can be defined as a dynamic and systematic collaborative approach to providing and coordinating health care services to a defined population. It is a participative process to identify and facilitate options and services for meeting individual health needs, while decreasing fragmentation and duplication of care and enhancing quality, cost effective clinical outcomes. The framework for nursing case management includes five components: assessment, planning, implementation, evaluating and interaction (ANA, 2004, p.10).

Masters prepared nurse case managers are equipped to utilize a variety of case management models across providers and the health care continuum. Nursing case management is fundamentally a process that changes the structure and process of care. It is important that masters prepared nurse case managers utilize a broad systems approach and take a leadership position in defining the linkages among structure, process and outcomes of care that are unique and specific to nursing case management. Furthermore, such nurses are educated to assume leadership roles in creating health services and systems that are high quality, humanistic, accessible and cost effective.

Faculty contends that nurse administrators function as organizers of the care delivery process. Masters prepared nurse administrators assume positions of leadership and management in variety of health care settings and function as members of interdisciplinary middle and upper level management teams with broad-based responsibilities. These masters prepared nurses plan, direct, design and evaluate both systems and delivery of health care.

Master’s prepared adult nurse practitioners acquire specialized skills and knowledge in assessment, diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic health problems and in the human response to actual or potential health problems. A nurse practitioner can be defined as, a skilled health care provider who utilizes critical judgment in the performance of comprehensive health assessments, differential diagnosis and the prescribing of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments in the direct management of acute and chronic illness and disease (ANA, 2004, p. 16).

As providers of primary health care, graduate prepared nurse practitioners utilize the nursing process to incorporate a pluralistic, holistic and humanistic perspective into the implementation of therapeutic nursing interventions for adult clients. Such nurses promote health seeking behaviors, identify risks and collaborate with other health team professionals for the comprehensive management of client care. Clinical decision making using critical thinking and diagnostic reasoning is integral to advanced practice.

Master’s prepared adult nurse practitioners are educated as advanced practice nurses who integrate theory, research, management, leadership, consultation and education into their clinical roles. These nurses are educated to assume leadership roles in the delivery of primary health services that are high quality, accessible and cost effective.

Consistent with NONPF curriculum domains for nurse practitioners, and the core curriculum recommended for all masters degree students in The Essentials of Masters Education for Advanced Practice Nursing, faculty believe that the curriculum must include research, policy, organization and finance of health care, ethics, professional role development, theoretical foundations of nursing practice, human diversity and social issues (AACN, 1996). Knowledge related to advanced health assessment, physiological and pathological mechanisms of disease, pharmacologic principles/pharmacotherapeutics and clinical specialty content are integral for master’s prepared nurse practitioners to deliver quality, holistic, accessible care to clients. Furthermore, emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, case management models and processes, health care economics, management of client services and leadership and management skills are essential for masters prepared nurse case managers and administrators to provide and direct quality, cost effective care to diverse populations.