Nursing Curriculum Essentials

Human Anatomy and Physiology I & II

Anatomy is the study of the body's internal and external structures, such as the skin, skeleton, heart, and liver. Physiology is the study of how organs perform their vital functions including digestion and respiration. Human Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) requires two courses to cover its extensive content, and each course consists of lecture and laboratory. The first course begins with A&P at the cellular, chemical, and tissue levels, then moves into the system level, which continues into the second course. Students will study the following systems: integumentary system (skin, hair, and nails), nervous, endocrine, respiratory, lymphatic, immune, cardiac, digestive, urinary, musculoskeletal, and reproductive. You will also learn about fluids and electrolytes, acid-base balance, metabolism, and genetics. A&P creates the foundation for health assessment, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and a large portion of the nursing process. Be advised that dissection of preserved mammalian specimens is required during laboratory sessions.

Microbiology

Microbiology introduces nursing students to the principles and clinical relevance of immunology (how humans fight disease), bacteriology (bacterial diseases), mycology (fungal diseases), virology (viral diseases), and in some cases, parasitology (parasitic diseases). The course includes many etiological agents responsible for global infectious diseases, as well as those that may be utilized as biological weapons. Knowledge about infectious diseases and immune response expands rapidly, thus content may vary when you take the course. Like A&P, microbiology consists of both lecture and laboratory.

Chemistry

Chemistry infiltrates everyday life since things as simple as cooking and cleaning involve chemicals. Our bodies consist of chemicals; chemicals keep us alive (oxygen); and chemicals cause illness (pollution). Nurses use chemicals daily when they administer medications. Nurses take one or two chemistry courses that focus on topics relevant to nursing, such as acids, bases, salts, amino acids, sugars, molality, DNA, and enzymes.

Nutrition

Based on chemistry, the nutrition course offers an introduction to the interrelationship among nutrition, food, and the environment as they impact health. Nutrition focuses on the concepts of nutrition, including chemistry, digestion, absorption, and metabolism of nutrients, as well as the role of diet in chronic illness across the lifespan.

Health Assessment

Health Assessment enables students to develop basic assessment techniques. Students essentially learn how to perform comprehensive subjective and objective data assessment. The course typically begins with interviewing skills, then progresses to the collection of client historical data, and then to system by system physical assessment. Students learn how to inspect, percuss, palpate, and auscultate, using their senses and medical equipment. Students practice interviewing skills and system assessment in the clinical laboratory, and complete the course by performing a head-to-toe physical assessment.

Pharmacology

Pharmacology emphasizes pharmaceutic, pharmokinetic, and pharmacodynamic phases, essentially providing students with detail on why and how medications work. Students learn about specific drug classifications: antiinfective, analgesic, cardiovascular, central nervous system, autonomic nervous system, respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, hormones, drugs for fluid and electrolyte balance, hematologic, psychiatric, antineoplastic, immunomodulators, ophthalmic, otic, nasal, topical, nutritional, and complementary alternative medicine. Students also learn pediatric and geriatric considerations, as well as drug interactions.

Adult Health

Adult health spans the curriculum since it encompasses the majority of adult illness, disorders, and traumas faced by nurses. Students learn principles of acute and chronic illness, homeostatis and adaptation, sociocultural factors, fluid and electrolyte imbalance, pain management, perioperative nursing, grieving and bereavement, and end-of-life care. They also develop new skills such as the insertion of nasogastric tubes, tube feedings, oxygen therapy, and tracheotomy care. The course includes lecture, nursing laboratory, and clinical practicum components that cover a myriad of disorders.

Typical Adult Medical/Surgical Problems

Women's Health (Obstetrical and Gynecological Nursing; Maternity Nursing; Childbearing Nursing)

This is the course where you get to see, and assist with, one of the greatest miracles of life—the birth of a baby! Originally this course centered on pregnancy and delivery. These concepts still form the core of women's health, but the content now provides students with other pertinent women's health issues. The primary focus now lies on the physiological and psychological adaptation to functional and dysfunctional health patterns in the child-bearing family. The course addresses the norms, pathophysiology, and nursing care related to pregnancy and childbirth, as well as issues of sexual-reproductive health and gynecological problems over the lifespan. Students learn about pregnancy, fetal development, the stages of the birthing process, newborn care, and the common complications that can arise during these events, such as maternal diabetes, eclampsia, fetal distress, prematurity, and complicated births such as caesarean sections. Students study menopause, fertility problems, sexual dysfunction, sexually transmitted diseases, breast cancer, and gynecological cancers. Some programs include content on high-risk newborns. The course consists of lecture, laboratory, and clinical practicum. Students learn prenatal assessment and teaching, labor and delivery, postpartum assessment, and newborn assessment and care. Students spend their practicum time on the maternity unit, in labor and delivery, in the newborn nursery, in the newborn intensive care unit (if available), and in prenatal clinics. Students may also work in the community providing education, including healthy prenatal nutrition, to pregnant adolescents.

Child and Adolescent Health Nursing (Pediatric Nursing)

For those of you wanting to work with children, here is your course. Pediatrics focuses on the unique developmental and healthcare needs of infants, children, and adolescents (henceforth referred to as children). Course content focuses on the physiological and psychological differences of children, wellness promotion, children's reaction to illness and hospitalization, and pediatric illnesses, such as childhood cancer, cystic fibrosis, asthma, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, celiac disease, and cerebral palsy. Students learn how to identify, report, manage, and prevent child abuse and neglect, how to work with children with psychiatric problems, how to administer medications and procedures to children, and pediatric health promotion. The course consists of lecture, clinical laboratory, and clinical practicum. While students spend part of their clinical rotation in an acute pediatric hospital setting, much of today's pediatrics is outpatient. Thus, students also work in doctors' offices and clinics, immunition programs, juvenile detention centers, schools, child and adolescent psychiatric settings, home care, and community agencies.

Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing

Nurses manage psychological issues and psychiatric disorders on a daily basis, regardless of where they work. This course provides the knowledge and experience to work with some of the most severely ill psychiatric clients, enabling you to choose a career as a psychiatric nurse or just apply psychiatric principles wherever you work. The course expands on your knowledge of therapeutic communications and psychiatric medications, and then focuses on the more common psychiatric disorders: major depression, bipolar disorder, the anxiety disorders (obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, panic), schizophrenia, eating disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse, domestic violence, Students also learn about various psychiatric therapies: individual, group, and family therapies; art and music therapy; and behavioral therapy. As with other nursing courses, faculty present content in lecture, the nursing laboratory, and clinical settings, such as psychiatric units of general hospitals, state and private psychitric hospitals, psychiatric clinics, and homeless shelters.

Nursing Notes

Surviving Junior Year, by Katie Cannizzo

There are two different types of students. There are college students and there are nursing students. Now, in a crowd it is impossible to tell the difference between the two. But hang out in a room with 40 nursing students and after about three minutes you will know 75 different nursing diagnoses specific to you. You will soon realize that the happiness and kindness in the room with nurses is contagious. This is normal; we are contagious, and nurses show signs of happiness related to the kind-natured people they are as evidenced by laughing and smiling that is uncontrolled.

In nursing, junior year is probably the most challenging of them all. When clinical starts and the professors start teaching out of the classroom and in a real hospital setting, it can get a little scary. Not only did I feel as if it were hectic being in the hospital, but also keeping up with studying for other classes was very difficult for me. In the hospital junior year, it is hard to believe the things that we as students are actually allowed to do. Administering medication, especially medications that require syringes, is scary the first time. I always remind myself that if the professor did not think we were able to do something, then they would not let us do that particular thing. If they did not think we were ready to be in the hospital with real patients, they would not let us be there.

Being a nursing student means having stable relationships with people who believe in you, people who can cheer you on. I have a hard time talking about school to some people. I feel like they do not understand the daily challenges. They do not know what it is like to be learning how to keep another human being alive. Life is such a valuable thing and sometimes people do not think of it that way. There were many times where I felt like quitting. I felt like switching majors. Every other major seemed easier than mine, and all my friends seemed to have so much free time. After a while I came to realize that this major is just a balancing act. There is a delicate balance between school, friendships, and family. There also must be time for fun and relaxing. Although it is very hard to find this balance (for me it took two years), the most challenging part is maintaining it once the balance is found.

It feels so good to be able to say that I am studying to be a nurse. I talk to the nurses in the hospital at clinical. Some of them enjoy the conversation and some act as if they cannot be bothered. I also speak a lot with my professors. This really helps with the whole experience, especially when they have life experiences to share. My professors are so knowledgeable; they are people to look up to, to aspire to be. I am a student, lucky to be receiving an education. I am a nursing student and someday with all this hard work, I hope somebody will look up to me. What I sometimes forget, however, is that people already look up to student nurses. They have kind hearts, a gentle touch, and more love than one can ever imagine. I am rewarded every day in some way—and being a nurse, these rewards will be constant throughout my career. This is important to remember, this is something to strive for, this will be my life and I am proud of it.

The following courses are more common in BSN programs:

Community Health Nursing: All nursing courses encompass some form of community nursing, but with the student focusing on individuals. This course focuses on working with whole communities and groups, using principles of public health, epidemiology, environmental health, and case management. Students learn and experience school nursing, occupational nursing, rehabilitation nursing, disaster nursing, correctional health nursing, parish nursing, rural nursing, and home care. This course gives students added independence to synthesize previous nursing knowledge with community health principles. Practicums occur practically anywhere, including health departments, housing complexes, and shopping malls.

Critical Care Nursing: If you love hands-on skills and advanced critical thinking, you'll love this course. Critical care nursing provides the basic principles for working with very ill clients in intensive care and emergency units, as well as in acute and home care, since sicker clients are living longer. Nurses learn the use and analysis of complex monitoring systems, and the assessment and management of complex, life-threatening illnesses.

Nursing Research: This course provides an introduction to and application of the principles and process of research in professional nursing practice. Content includes principles of evidence-based practice, study of research design, data collection techniques, interpretation and critique of nursing research, literature and reports, and the development of the ability to become a discriminating consumer of nursing research. Some programs encourage students to create an evidence-based practice project, while others require a small research project.

Nursing Leadership: Nursing Leadership focuses on the nurse's role as caregiver, advocate, teacher, and leader/manager in promoting, restoring, and maintaining adaptive responses in individuals experiencing complex health problems. Students continue to use the nursing process, while they develop case management skills in collaboration with the interdisciplinary health team. The clinical practicum portion of this course gives students an opportunity to utilize leadership and management skills at the hospital unit level.

Professional Issues in Nursing: This course varies from one institution to another and may include the health care system, the health care crisis, the nursing shortage, ethical issues in nursing, legal issues including malpractice, and global health. The course is strictly didactic and typically presented in a discussion seminar format.

Nursing Electives: Nursing electives provide students with the opportunity to immerse themselves in a nursing specialty area and learn about nursing practice from a variety of different perspectives. Electives vary per program but include: informatics, genetics, gerontology, forensics, rural nursing, emergency nursing, study abroad, human sexuality, end-of-life care, risk management, disaster preparedness, spiritual care, parish nursing, nursing history, cancer nursing, HIV/AIDS, transcultural nursing, and holistic nursing. Chapter 6 contains descriptions of many of these nursing specialties.