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Last Updated: 2 July 2007
By: Web Admin
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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
School of Nursing
 The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio - School of Nursing
Mail Code 7942
7703 Floyd Curl Drive
San Antonio, TX 78229-3900
Mission and Philosophy Statement
 
 

The faculty believes that all people have inherent dignity and value. Each person is worthy of respect regardless of values, beliefs, experiences, goals and lifestyles. These beliefs about human beings guide the caring aspect of nursing that is reflected in both the science and the art of nursing.

The faculty believes that nursing education is based on the belief that learning is a life long, self-directed process encompassing the cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains. Learning is enhanced by the knowledgeable, caring, and supportive faculty and by students who assume active responsibility for their own learning.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, School of Nursing is one of five schools of the Health Science Center and shares the goal of assuring high quality health care for the people of Texas. The purpose of the School of Nursing is to prepare students at the undergraduate and graduate levels to function in a variety of professional nurse roles. The School of Nursing is committed to the highest standards of achievement in instruction, student performance research and scholarly accomplishment, *patient care, and service as well as the Health Science Center’s responsibilities to South Texas, the state, the nation, and the world.
 
 


Major philosophical commitments of the School of Nursing are organized to six concepts that are emphasized throughout its organization, characterize the conduct of faculty and students, and inspire its education programs. The concepts are: professionalism, scholarship, integrated learning, transition, customization, and partnership. The concepts are integrated within a Community Partnership Model.

The Community Partnership model is based on assumptions within the organizing framework and philosophy of the School of Nursing. Within the framework students actively seek educational experiences to learn the subject of nursing in settings where professional nurses have varied roles as providers of care, member/advocates for the profession and leader/managers for health care. In the Community-Partnership model, community is the context within which nursing partners to protect, promote, restore and maintain health. The model facilitates integration of community concepts throughout the curriculum rather than offering community content solely as a discrete course. In this integrated curriculum, students, as partners in education, have learning experiences across environments in varied settings and with varied *patient partners throughout the curriculum. Concepts are interwoven throughout the curriculum which promotes the philosophy of partnering with communities experiencing health transitions by customizing therapeutic professional practice through integrated learning, critical thinking, and scholarship.

Conceptual Diagram of Philosophy
Conceptual Diagram of Philosophy
click image for larger view

Concepts:

Professionalism
Nursing is a theory driven, scientifically based profession, that is actualized through the art of practice. The process of care, which occurs through partnership between the practitioner and *patient, enables nurses to nurture human potential, enhance quality of life and assist *patients to achieve optimal health. Nursing draws its knowledge and theory from nursing, basic, behavioral and biological sciences. The professional nurse in the roles of provider, leader/manager, and member/advocate of the profession is responsible for and accountable to individuals, families, aggregates, the community and society for assessing, planning, providing, and evaluating nursing are across the life span. Faculty and preceptors, as role models for students, personify the qualities for professionalism.

Scholarship
Nursing scholarship is a unique synthesis of knowledge from basic, behavioral and biological sciences within the domain that is professional nursing. Nursing scholarship involved discovering, creating, structuring, testing, and refining knowledge needed for the practice of nursing. This process occurs through various partnerships among individual, the School of Nursing, the Health Science Center, local and world communities. The value of professional scholarship, to which faculty and students subscribe, is realized through its application in the role of provider, leader/manager, and member/advocate of the profession, in response to specific human and societal needs.

Integrated learning
Learning is a process that involves that totality of human experiences and facilitates life long transitions. Integrated learning has two unique dimensions. The first dimension acknowledges the interaction of the student’s personal components of need, ability, and style. The second acknowledges that the subject (nursing) necessitates incorporation of diverse information into a unified whole – knowledge. Active learning requires students who demonstrate commitment to their development and assume responsibility for their role in the learning process. This results in the preparation of professional practitioners with a broad perspective and understanding of multiple content areas, who are able to synthesize information from various disciplines, think logically, analyze critically and communicate effectively with *patients and other health care professionals. Settings that will optimize student learning are critical to efficient and effective teaching and learning.

Transition
“A transition denotes a change in health status, in role relations, in expectation, or in abilities”

Many factors influence resilient and health transitions resulting in positive changes in bio-behavioral responses, relationships, capabilities, and outcomes relative to people, organizations, and society. The nurse as provider engages the *patient in a partnership to evaluate, nurture, and sustain a health state. During times of health transitions due to developmental processes, disability, disease, or the process of dying the nurse provider cares for the *patient in a holistic, compassionate, and ethical manner. The nurse–*patient partnership involves customized care to the individual *patient. The outcomes of the nurse-*patient partnership are manifested in changes in health status, knowledge, level and nature of role relationships, behavioral changes, and attitudes.

Of particular importance in the educational area is the School of Nursing’s commitment to serving a diverse student population, and providing education mobility. The faculty recognizes that various nursing programs share a common core and value the various life experiences, knowledge, skill, and abilities that students bring to the educational process. The School of Nursing fosters educational transitions by providing the prospective student with multiple entry options to minimize repetition of content between programs. Faculty and students in partnership customize learning experiences to assist the student in transition to the role of professional nurse at the undergraduate level and the roles of advanced practice nurse, and scientist, at the graduate levels. Faculty and students share the responsibility for an education al partnership that encourages growth toward learning outcomes in an innovative, evolving learning environment. Outcomes are founded in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains and encourage growth from novice to expert levels.

Customization
Nursing care and education should be realized in a manner that maximizes resource utilization, quality and access. Customization implies designing processes responsive to participant needs, understanding that ability to respond to change is critical to full participation of individuals and groups in the global future. Customization requires adaptability, an unbounded frame of reference, reconceptualizing ideas, realignment, cooperation, and focus on essentials. For the learner, needs, readiness, and style are considered, as is curriculum design and implementation that allows for adaptability to best facilitate educational and professional transitions. Customization in care management and delivery involves interactions between health care providers from many disciplines within their collective contexts and requires active partnerships.

Partnership
Responsive to the changing health care environment, participants maintain a set of dynamic relationships with mutual responsibility for student education and the health of all partners. Faculty and students share the responsibility for an educational partnership that encourages growth toward learning outcomes in an innovative, evolving learning environment. Partnership implies a collegiality that facilitates implementing a learning environment where each participant contributes and receives something that matters, becomes more capable personally and in groups, and devises coordinated meaningful activity. Partners are responsible according to their role; teacher, student, *patient, healthcare provider, organization, family, community. Partnerships extend to multidisciplinary relationships and organizational contacts. The partnership generates strategic plans and positive creative energy to support he health care goals of the whole.

School of Nursing Description of Baccalaureate Prepared Nurse

The baccalaureate prepared professional nurse provides comprehensive care across the life span in diverse settings following a Community-Partnership model. The nurse is skilled in case and system management, as well as intra/interdisciplinary coordination of individual and population based health care. The professional nurse is accountable for high-quality, cost effective, accessible care in implementing and integrating primary, acute, and tertiary car for * patients as they move across settings the professional nurse maintains a global view of health, health policy, health care, and health services. As a scholar, the nurse is capable of making valuable contributions to an understanding of health, illness, and healing.

Program Objectives:

The baccalaureate program provides opportunities for the learner to develop the following behaviors:

  1. Design nursing processes to provide comprehensive care across the lifespan in structured –unstructured settings, simple-complex situations, and predictable-unpredictable circumstances.

  2. Create partnerships with *patients in the customized therapeutic care process to protect, promote, and restore optimal health.

  3. Incorporate therapeutic communication skills when enacting professional practice.

  4. Evaluate practice decisions using critical thinking.

  5. Evaluate strategies to improve nursing care through scholarship.

  6. Manage, lean and collaborate with health care providers from multiple disciplines to deliver quality care acroos levels of prevention and within organizational structures of diverse health care settings.

  7. Adhere to ethical and legal conduct that reflects the standards of nursing practice.

  8. Display behaviors that demonstrate the values of a self-directed professional engaged in continuing development.

* Patient (individual, family, aggregate, community or society)

Organizing Framework

A model of interaction between student, setting, and subject (Chater, 1975) provides the opportunity for organizing assumptions and the base from which program decisions and curriculum structure are derived. The interactions of student, setting, and subject as focal areas are always dynamic and are always interdependent. Each focal area is singled out and addressed by dominant assumptions; none are operative until brought together in interaction constituting the enactment of the education program.

Student
The student in the educational program is an active participant in the learning process.

Assumptions About Students

  1. Student seek education opportunities to acquire knowledge for role preparation, to participate in knowledge generation, and for personal/professional development

  2. Students experience the greatest performance gains and satisfaction when:
    1. The methods of instruction complement the nature of the content and skills to be acquired;
    2. An integrated learning approach is used;
    3. The objectives to be attained and the means and methods for evaluation are distinctly expressed;
    4. A balance is achieved between the use of human interaction and contemporary technology;
    5. Active participation occurs in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of their learning experience;
    6. The partnership between faculty and learner is clearly explicated;
    7. Faculty are high in effectiveness, which includes: organization, enthusiasm; ability to interpret, explain, and relate information to practice; ability to stimulate learner interest and involvement in learning; and attentiveness to and interest in learners

  3. Students interact with the education/learning environment to both influence it and to be influenced by it.

  4. Students have varied characteristics that serve as enhancements or constraints to the learning process and environment to include:
    1. Academic preparation in nursing and other disciplines;
    2. Experiential bases in nursing and other fields;
    3. Personal attributes (motivational; preferred learning styles; capacity to learn)
    4. Demographical distances from the main campus;
    5. Limitations in capacity to focus on the educational process (work, family, travel, recourses

Setting

The setting is the vehicle, as well as the environment, for providing learners the opportunity to learn the practice of nursing and its many roles, and to engage in practice with supervision and guidance from faculty.

Assumptions About Setting

  1. The most valuable settings for learning are those that provide the greatest opportunity to acquire and apply new attitudes, knowledge and skills

  2. The location of the program in South Texas provides learners with the opportunity to study and practice nursing in rich cultural, political, social and economic settings with implications for and applicability to other health care environments.

  3. The culturally diverse and geographically distant populations throughout South Texas and their correspondingly varied health needs necessitate accessible, affordable, culturally sensitive, interdisciplinary primary, secondary, and tertiary health care services.

  4. The philosophy of the Health Science Center promotes an environment for learning and development of theory and practice in nursing, the opportunity for practice specialization, and role development as researcher/scientist, teacher, and administrator.

  5. The UTHSCSA is a dynamic organization; the Strategic Planning Process of the Health Science Center and the Strategic Plan for the School of Nursing focus attention on dominant needs and opportunities.

 Subject

The subject is nursing, its multiple roles and scope of practice. The content of nursing subsumes the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of practice; standards of practice; roles and role relationships; and the synthesis of knowledge from the behavioral, natural, physical, and medical sciences, and varied disciplines, to prepare a legally, ethically, socially responsive and responsible practitioner.

Assumptions About Subject

  1. The contemporary nature of nursing, as viewed by the School of Nursing, is characterized by a dynamic nurse-*patient relationship involving partnership, and the concepts of professionalism, transition, customization, scholarship, and integrated learning. The various interactions that take place in nursing and within an education program in nursing are incorporated. (See attached Conceptual Model)

  2. The roles of the baccalaureate prepared nurse are categorized as: Provider of Care; Leader/Manager of Health Care; Member/Advocate for the Profession.

  3. The content of the graduate program builds on the science, theory, and practice of the undergraduate program.

  4. The roles of the master’s prepared nurse are categorized as advanced practitioner, educator, administrator, and leader in the profession.

  5. The role of the doctorally prepared nurse subsumes the role of the master’s prepared nurse with the addition of researcher and scientist.

  6. More knowledge exists than can be reasonably learned. The selection and timely revision of Essential Content (baccalaureate program) is important in defining that which is specifically relevant for the designated program of study. The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice, American Association of Colleges of Nursing has been accepted as the Essential Content guidelines for the curriculum.

  7. Transfer of knowledge does not occur automatically. Addressing learning at its various levels by differentiating data, information, and knowledge is essential to and part of the learning process.

Definition of Terms

Communication – Communication is the dynamic developmental process of transmitting perceptions, thoughts, and ideas in verbal, non-verbal and written interactions. Within an intentional process, messages are effectively conveyed by persons or technology (CCUP/COGS, May 1997)

Community – Community is the context which nursing partners to protect, promote, restore, and maintain health.

Critical Thinking – Critical thinking is the cognitive process of purposeful self-regulatory judgment. Critical thinking includes the skills of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference and explanation that leads to problem solving and decision-making in clinical, communication, ethical and moral issues. Characteristics of a well-cultivated critical thinker may include: raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely; gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstractions to interpret it effectively; comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems (CCUP/COGS, May 1997)

Customization – Customization is the interactive process of tailoring, adapting, or individualizing a process or product based on needs of the recipient or “customer” as an individual or aggregate. In the educational process customization may be based on the learning needs of the recipient or customer within the parameters of a defined terminal product.

Integrated Learning – Integrated Learning is a process whereby individuals are exposed to new information and experiences through their various senses, and in the process of assimilating that into their current context, develop new knowledge, attitudes, values, or skills. Individuals can learn skills to maximize the integrated learning process.

Partnership – Partnership is an interdependent and dynamic relationship between two or more associates (persons, organizations) that serves as a supporting framework for the purposes of achieving goals. The relationship enhances each of the partners in ways that go beyond what either could accomplish alone. Through the process of interaction, roles are defined and the goals and means of achieving the goals are negotiated and determined.

Professionalism – Professionalism is the characteristic of a person who possesses specialized knowledge and skill that is used in fulfillment of an obligation to serve society. Professionalism in nursing is characterized by commitment to values that support human dignity and worth. The professional nurse possesses certain attitudes and personal qualities that are expressed as professional behaviors. The professional nurse focuses on providing safe, humanistic care focused on health and quality of life (adapted from AACN, 1997 Essentials in Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice.)

Scholarship – Scholarship is a dynamic process of applying critical thinking to the pursuit of discovering, integrating, applying and transmitting knowledge relative to teaching, research, practice, and service. Scholarship involves creativity and the offering of one’s ideas for deliberation and critique by others. Scholarship in nursing refers to continuing rigorous study of the nature of the essential components and effects of nursing, and a search for substantive answers that will improve nursing practice.

Therapeutic Interventions – The ability to provide theory-based therapeutic nursing interventions is the core of professional nursing practice. Therapeutic nursing interventions are those direct or indirect interactions that occur between a nurse and patient* to diagnose and treat human responses to actual or potential health problems. Furthermore, therapeutic nursing interventions have cultural and ethnic relevance for the patient* and are carried out within the ethical and legal domains of practice.

Transition – Transition is the dynamic process of passing from one state, stage, place or subject to another. Transitions occur for individuals, groups and organization. A transition denotes a change in health status, in role relationships, in expectations or abilities. It denotes changes in needs of all human systems. Transition requires the person to incorporate new knowledge, to alter behavior, and therefore to change the definition of self in social context, of a health or ill self, or if internal and external needs, which affects the health status. Meleis, A. (1991) Theoretical nursing; development and progress. 2 nd ed. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott.  

*patient (individual, family, aggregate, community or society)