1. Apply leadership and management theories and nursing processes to patient care across the life span.
2. Participate as leadership and management partners within health care delivery systems in customized therapeutic care processes.
3. Apply various communication skills and processes in leading and managing of quality care delivery in professional practice.
4. Demonstrate critical thinking as the basis for leadership and management decisions in quality care delivery in professional practice.
5. Apply evidence-based research findings to lead and manage customized care.
6. Demonstrate the leadership and management ability necessary to assure and facilitate collaborative relationships with patients.
7. Recognize the legal and ethical implications of leadership and management decisions and their relevance to professional standards.
8. Recognize the leadership and management role in facilitating professional development in self and  others.

Overview of Clinical
Clinical experience in NURS.4410 consists of three weeks in an acute care setting. The clinical objectives are applicable in all areas to which the student may be assigned. Failure of a student to demonstrate safe nursing care will constitute failure of the course, NURS.4410. Clinical objectives must be achieved by the end of the clinical experience for the student to pass the clinical part of NURS.4410.

NOTE: Clinical Orientation is November 14, 2008;  8:00 AM TO 5:00PM.

             Clinical Days are as follows:
             November 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26 (Alternate Clinical Activity)
             December 1, 2, 3

Nursing Process:

1. Apply the Nursing Process to assess and plan for needs of the patients.
2. Evaluate the care delivered for patients using Standards of Care for the unit or care setting.
3. Assess and evaluate the mission, vision, and organizational structure of the care delivery setting.
4. Assess the care setting's organizational culture and its impact on care delivery.
5. Organize, direct, and evaluate activities for delivery of care to a group of patients.
6. Apply principles of leadership theory in the provision of safe patient care.

Customized Care:

1. Demonstrate safe, therapeutic, and customized nursing care.
2. Participate as partners in the provision of care that is sensitive to special needs of staff and patients.
3. Participate in team building activity with other health care workers.

Communication Skills:

1. Participate in patient status reports, care management meetings, outcome management meetings, multidisciplinary meetings.
2. Apply vertical, horizontal, and lateral communication skills to build relationships.
3. Demonstrate appropriate conflict management techniques when communicating with peers, staff, and faculty.

Critical Thinking:

1. Demonstrate responsibility for the acquisition and application of new knowledge to practice.
2. Apply management principles of economics, budgeting and safety in the allocation of resources
   (such as personnel, supplies, equipment) on unit or care delivery setting
3. Establish appropriate priorities for care delivery to a group of patients.
4. Make sound decisions using established theoretical frameworks.
5. Delegate care appropriately-demonstrates understanding of Texas Nurse Practice Act and general        management principles.
6. Use information technology in decision making.

Research:

1. Use evidenced-based practice and/or research based knowledge for practice and quality improvement when managing and leading customized care.

Collaborative Relationships: When collaborating with patients:

1. Demonstrate courage and self-confidence to establish therapeutic relationship.
2. Demonstrate ability to deal with complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty.
3. Demonstrate willingness to support family members.
4. Recognize when there is a need for intervention by other disciplines.
5. Demonstrate ability to facilitate communication between self and other members of the healthcare team.

Legal and Ethical Implications:

1. Demonstrate accountability and responsibility for own behavior.
2. Practice within accepted legal and ethical standards.
3. Recognize practice situations with potential legal and/or ethical ramification based on knowledge of the        Nurse Practice Act, HSC nursing student policies, and clinical agency policies.

Professional Development:

1. Incorporate principles of self management to one's own learning.
2. Seek appropriate assistance and utilize guidance to facilitate own learning.
3. Facilitate development of self in others.
4. Participate in change activities being implemented by unit or care delivery setting.

Clinical Experience

1. Student Clinical Groups
   Clinical group assignments are coordinated by the Course coordinator/Adm. Asst II-Undergraduate Nursing Office /Department Chair and are based on student input, faculty workload considerations, and available clinical agencies and times.
   
2. Clinical Rotation
   1. Absences: In the event that extenuating circumstances prevent a student from attending a clinical experience, the student will notify the agency and clinical instructor a minimum of one hour before the experience is scheduled to begin.
   
   
   2. Meals/Breaks: A thirty minute meal break is scheduled for all clinical sessions that are more than  five hours in duration.
   
   
   3. Evaluation: The team believes that students and faculty share the responsibility for evaluating student clinical performance. The student will be expected to do a written self evaluation at the end of the semester and to share this with the instructor during the scheduled student faculty conference.
      A copy of the form to be used is available on E-Reserves

Examinations

1. Each exam will have questions of equal weight and will be timed.
2. Calculations of medications will be included in all exams.
3. The final exam will be comprehensive.
4. Exams are graded by computer.  An item analysis of all questions is done before the grades are determined.  Only the scantron will be used for grade determination.
5. Testable material is based on course and clinical objectives and includes, but is not limited to:
   1. all required readings, lectures, study guides, and discussion content
   2. related material in the course packet or Web syllabus, if applicable
   3. content covered by media presented or required for class
   4. materials given as handouts or placed on E-Reserves
6. General examination policies are as follows:
1. All exams are required.
   1. Students missing an exam must take a make-up exam if the excuse for missing the exam is reasonable and necessary.
   2. Make-up exams will be different from the scheduled exam.
   3. Make-up exams will be administered only at one scheduled time.
   4. The opportunity to take a make-up final exam is at the discretion of the faculty and will require documented evidence of the basis for missing the final exam.
2. Students must notify the Administrative Assistant for Acute Nursing Care prior to the scheduled exam time if they are unable to take an exam.  Failure to make this notification will result in a “zero” for that exam.
3. It is the student’s responsibility to assure that he/she has answered all test items before leaving the room.
4. If a student arrives late for an exam, no extra time to complete the exam will be given.
5. If the exam is not turned in when time is called, a grade of “zero” will be assigned.
7. To preserve the integrity of examinations, the following policies apply:
1. Students cannot bring any items into the exam room (including purses,  backpacks, cell phones, pagers, caps, jackets or other items).  Pencils, erasers, and Kleenex will be provided.
2. Students may be assigned seats by faculty proctors.
3. Students will remain in the exam room until the exam is completed and both the exam and answer sheet have been turned in to the faculty proctor.
4. Students will be required to show their student ID to take the examination.
5. Students will utilize the student identification number given to them.
 
8. To reinforce learning and promote understanding of content, the following policies apply:  
   1. Students must contact their clinical instructor to schedule an appointment to review the questions answered incorrectly on their exam.  The student will have two weeks from the time grades are posted to review the test results.
   2. A Key room or group test reviews will not be done.
    
9. A blueprint of each examination will be available at least two weeks prior to the  scheduled date of the exam.  Scheduled time for each exam may vary based on the number of items on the exam.
10. Exam grades will be posted on the 4410 E-Reserves according to student identification numbers.

General Student Policies: The UTHSCSASN Student Handbook outlines the rights, responsibilities, and guidelines associated with the student role in the Nursing School. Students are responsible for all information in the Handbook, Catalog, Course and material on E-Reserves.

Attendance/Tardy: Attendance in Class, Clinical, and Clinical Skills lab is required. Absences jeopardize achievement of course objectives. Clinical attendance is checked for each clinical experience. Clinical Skills Lab attendance is checked each lab. Students are expected to complete the designated number of course clinical hours. If greater than 10% of clinical time is missed in courses with clinical hours of 100 or less, the student will not progress in that specific course that semester.  In the event of a holiday or designated school function on a clinical day, students will be provided with an alternate learning activity. Missed clinical hours cannot be "made up".  However, clinical faculty will assign alternative learning activities for missed clinical experiences.

Class Cancellation: If class is canceled for any reason, the student is expected to do the readings and complete the class objectives for that day(s). Every effort will be made to answer your questions on the content at the next regularly scheduled class meeting. This content will still be included on course examinations.

Patient Safety: Students are expected to be aware of the policies on patient safety stated in the Student Handbook.

The nature of clinical nursing courses is such that students are involved in the direct delivery of patient care services. The primary purpose of any course is to provide education for students. However, when direct patient care is involved in the learning experience, the safety and well being of patients are also of paramount concern. Nursing clinical courses are structured so that as students progress through the program they are expected to demonstrate increasing independence and competence in providing nursing care.

Students are expected to demonstrate achievement of clinical objectives by the end of a clinical course and, in usual circumstances, are allowed to continue in a clinical course until the end of that course. In the unusual circumstances that, in the instructor's professional judgment, a student is unable to provide safe nursing care to patients and if this deficit is such that it cannot be remedied in the given clinical time within the limits of available faculty supervision, the student will be removed from the clinical setting and will receive a failure course grade.

Gahart, B.L. (newest edition) Intravenous medications: A handbook for nurses and other allied health
      professionals. St. Louis: Mosby.

Huether, S.E., McCance, K.L. (2004). Understanding Pathophysiology (3rd ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.

Lewis, S.M., Heitkemper, M.M., & Dirksen, S.R. (2004) Medical-surgical nursing: Assessment and
      management of clinical problems (6^th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.

• Health Care Environment
• Health Care Economics
• Personal and Interdisciplinary Communication
• Health Care Informatics
• Effective Team Building
• Time Management
• Decision Making
• Change and Conflict Resolution
• Power
• Politics and Consumer Partnerships
• Strategic Planning and Organizational Structure
• Leadership and Management
• Budget Concepts
• Delegation of Nursing Care
• Effective Staffing
• Managing Outcomes:  Evidence Based Practice
• Managing Outcomes Using an Organizational Quality Improvement Model
• Ethical Dimensions of Patient Care
• Legal Aspects of Patient Care
• Your First Job