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Our Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY

The faculty of the Auburn University School of Nursing (AUSON) has developed a philosophy, conceptual framework, and outcome objectives that are consistent with the philosophy and objectives of Auburn University. Both the School of Nursing and Auburn University are dedicated to service to Alabama and the nation through the three divisions of instruction, research, and extension/outreach.

COMMUNITY

The community is viewed as embracing all environments in whatever locale that environment is found, expanding and contracting, based on client(s), group(s), or aggregate(s). The practice of the professional nurse extends beyond the confines of the immediate setting where the nurse practices to the broader environment. We believe the professional nurse of the 21st century must be prepared to practice in a constantly evolving and dynamic environment. The beginning nurse should be able to function in the broadly defined community setting. Students receive balanced experiences between the community found in the traditional acute care settings and non-traditional settings found in the community health environment, primary health care environment, long term care environment, and many others. Therefore, students should have practice opportunities that enable them to demonstrate flexibility and adaptation to changing environments. A familiarity with diverse environments’ organizational structures, legal, ethical, and economic parameters, as well as diverse client groups, will enable the 21st century nurse to function in diverse settings. To prepare students for the 21st century, students interact with a variety of clients across a diversity of community settings, focusing on primary health care from the first semester of the program.

CLIENT

The faculty views the client as encompassing an individual, family, aggregate, or population. In the broadest sense, the client is the recipient of nursing care, whether as an individual, family group, aggregate, or population. The client is comprised of physiological, psychological, developmental, sociocultural, and spiritual variables, which are fluid and constantly interacting with the changing environment. Clients use adaptive processes to attain or maintain health. Professional nurses interact with many clients simultaneously from diverse cultural backgrounds and across a variety of environments. As students move through the curriculum, the focus is expanded to include responsibility for more complex clients including families and aggregates experiencing health care alterations.

HEALTH

The faculty believes that health is an adaptive state of optimal physiological, psychological, socio-cultural, developmental, and spiritual client functioning. Nurses assist individuals, families, aggregates, and populations to identify and implement health-promoting strategies. The faculty believes that the rights of access to health care, autonomy in decision-making related to health, and death with dignity belong to all human beings.

 NURSING

Nursing is viewed as a professional discipline, a clinical practice, a humanistic field, and an influence for social good in its concern for all aspects of human responses to health states and the environment. The professional nurse must be educated in the science of the profession and utilize a broad knowledge base from humanities, and physical and behavioral sciences. The nurse partners with the client to assess health care needs through interactive processes that blend caring and interest with a scientific knowledge base and experience. The nurse utilizes this unique combination of knowledge, skills, and humanism in serving as proactive leaders and members of health care teams focused on promoting optimal wellness for individuals and society. The role of the professional nurse in providing high quality, cost-effective, accessible health care requires expertise in four skill areas: communication, clinical practice, management, and professional nursing.

LEARNING

 The integration of the abilities in communication, clinical practice, management, and professional nursing is fostered in a teaching-learning environment that blends enthusiasm and interest with the models of inquiry and scholarship. In this environment, faculty endeavor to demonstrate the value of individual uniqueness in students and facilitate the development of the student as a whole person. The teaching-learning process operates within the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. Learning is viewed as the integration of knowledge and experience which results in assumption of professional responsibility and accountability for nursing decisions and actions utilizing appropriate ethical, legal, and sociocultural standards. Learning is influenced by motivation, life experiences, and maturation, with learning styles and rates differing with each individual. The faculty recognizes the importance of providing opportunities for the growth and development of the student on an individual basis. The faculty believes that nursing education is the systematic guidance of the student toward acquiring communication, clinical practice, management, and professional nursing skills. The faculty believes that both study and practice of the nursing role are essential for the synthesis of nursing theory and practice. In the School of Nursing, learning is viewed as a shared responsibility of the faculty and students, and learning experiences progress from the structured to the facilitated to the self-directed.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The curriculum is based on faculty beliefs about the four skills areas and designed to assist students to progressively develop expertise in these areas:

The communication skills of nursing include relationship skills, teaching-learning skills, and computer and information technology skills. Professional nursing is practice in collaboration with consumers and members of the health care community and as such involves skill in forming trusting effective relationships in a wide diversity of socio-cultural situations. Nursing optimizes the value of health care through emphasis on health promotion and education. Nurses empower clients to make behavior changes by assisting them to improve their knowledge, skills, motivation, and resources. Nurses must be able to access and use the expanding set of technological tools to gain and exchange information and integrate this technology into their clinical practice.

The clinical practice skills of nursing are oriented around a process for critical thinking and decision making with the goal of optimizing the client’s health. The nursing process provides the mechanism through which nurses assess and diagnose client’s actual or potential responses to health problems and/or the environment, establish mutual health goals, implement appropriate interventions, and evaluate outcomes of care. Nursing involves the development of clinical practice skills as well as self-mastery of critical thinking and decision-making skills.

Management skills are essential for professional nurses to best meet the needs of clients and address health care delivery problems in the 21st century. The professional nurse must be able to manage the health care of an increasingly diverse population in an environment of economic constraint and expanding technology and delivery settings. To do this, the nurse must develop skills in case management, coordination, collaboration, negotiation, policy formulation, and financial management.

Professional nursing skills include professional nursing practiced in the context of human relationships. Clinical judgments have as much to do with values and ethics as with knowledge and technology. Professional nurses must develop skills in human valuing and ethical reasoning, as well as caring and compassion, to be true advocates for clients at the local, state, and national levels. Advances in technology require the nurse to be able to address ethical dilemmas for clients, the health care system, and for one ’ s self. Development of skill in integrating professional, ethical, and legal standards into practice is necessary. Professional nurses are committed to life-long learning, the development and utilization of nursing knowledge, and the advancement of the profession.

In summary, the faculty believes that development of professional nurses involves an educational process that includes teaching these skills as well as socializing students as to their utilization. The focus in the nursing educational program is on how to use critical thinking as a basis for life-long learning to expand and develop their skills and knowledge. As students move through the curriculum, the focus is expanded to include responsibility for more complex clients including individuals, families, and aggregates experiencing health care alterations.

Resources: AACN Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing.

M .Styles - On Nursing Toward a New Endowment