TRINITY VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

VOCATIONAL NURSING PROGRAM

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptual framework, an eclectic design, is subscribed to by the Vocational Nursing faculty at Trinity Valley Community College. The basic foundation consists of the concepts of student, patient, community, learning and nursing. The community college serves to meet the educational needs of the students and the health care system in the community. The student and patient are central focuses of the VN curriculum. The seven major interconnected concepts that overlap and form the central framework and caring, competency, collaboration, cultural sensitivity, client advocacy, critical thinking, and community. Through the seven “C’s”, the student is able to learn and apply the art and science of nursing and apply them to the practice of nursing. In addition, threads which appear throughout the curriculum include: nursing process, nursing roles, health care needs, ethical/legal considerations, and pharmacological considerations.

CARING

Caring is a sincere, genuine expression of concern that promotes the welfare of others. This quality describes the “art of nursing” and includes forming relationships with patients in compassionate, nurturing, protective, empathic, nonjudgmental, open-minded and altruistic ways. Nursing derives from a humanitarian philosophy that couples this caring with an understanding of the art and science of nursing practice.

COMPETENCE

Competence is attaining a level of skill that will result in a professional, safe, accountable and knowledgeable nurse who can function autonomously. These skills include those described in the Entry Level Competencies of Texas Graduate of Vocational Nursing Programs. Nursing also requires basic workplace skills in terms of working with others, cost effective use of available resources, effective communication and utilizing new technology. Competency is maintained through life-long learning and includes acquiring and maintaining nursing knowledge, skills, and workplace practices.

CRITICAL THINKING

Critical thinking is the ability to take a variety of complex ideas and information and utilize reasoning to make priority judgments. Critical thinking involves the specific competencies of diagnostic reasoning, making clinical inferences and clinical decision-making. It includes the use of the nursing process (assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation in order to analyze and process information to make rational, legal, moral and ethical decisions with clients and their families within the community.

COLLABORATION

Nursing and the delivery of nursing care to man involves working and sharing with a multi disciplinary health care team to accomplish a common, mutual goal. Nursing works with these multi disciplinary teams, as well as the patient by establishing a collaborative partnership with them. Collaboration incorporates the concepts of team building, negotiation and interdependence. The nurse collaborates to create a patient-focused and patient-driven system that delivers accessible, quality and cost effective care.

CLIENT ADVOCATE

Being an advocate is the ability to consider all aspects of the patient and his/her needs, and to actively support the welfare of the patient through personal and professional actions and interactions with others. The nurse uses knowledge to empower patients in making informed decisions regarding their own health promotion, health restoration, health maintenance and death. The nurse demonstrates the qualities of being assertive and confident with patient’s best interest foremost.

COMMUNITY

A community is a group of people, as defined in the philosophy, who together have a unique group perspective that differentiates them from other groups. The practice of nursing includes a commitment to patients and the community in which they live as well as the society and environment encompassing the individuals. Community not only encompasses the patients nurses serve, but also the sense of belongingness created when a group works toward common goals not only for itself, but also for the common goal of the larger society.

CULTURAL SENSITIVITY

Cultural sensitivity is the acceptance of people for themselves, including their traditions, beliefs, and customs. The National Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses (NFLPN) Code for Licensed Practical/Vocational Nurses included in its standards that the LPN/LVN must “Provide healthcare to all patients regardless of race, creed, cultural background, disease, or lifestyle.” We believe in a commitment to a culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse community. A nurse may not discriminate against any person based on age, color, creed, disability, gender, health status, race, religion, lifestyle, nationality, or sexual orientation.

PROGRAM THREADS

The program threads which appear in each nursing course in the integrated curriculum and support the seven “C’s” of the conceptual framework are: nursing process, nursing roles, health care needs, ethical/legal considerations, and pharmacological considerations.

NURSING PROCESS

The nursing process is a systematic, client-centered, goal-oriented method that directs the nurse and patient to determine the need for nursing care through assessment, planning, implementation of the care, and evaluation of the effectiveness of the care provided. The purpose of the nursing process is to assist the nurse to manage the patient’s care scientifically, and competently while promoting, maintaining, or restoring health or supporting the patient with a peaceful, dignified death.

NURSING ROLES

The nursing process is administered through the interrelated roles of nursing, which define the functions of the nurse. As a provider of patient-centered care, the nurse utilizes critical thinking to implement the nursing process in a caring, competent, culturally sensitive manner. The role of the provider includes the use of therapeutic communication and the teaching/learning principles. As a member of health care team, the nurse prioritizes, collaborates, communicates, assigns and acts as a client advocate. As a member of a profession, the nurse practices within an ethical/legal framework to maintain standards of practice and competency of nursing care. As a patient safety advocate, the nurse promotes a safe environment for patients, maintains professional boundaries, and demonstrates knowledge about the Texas Nursing Practice Act and Board rules.

HEALTH CARE NEEDS

The scope of practice for the vocational nurse is to assist and empower patients in meeting their health care needs to achieve an optimal level of wellness. Patient needs provide a universal structure for defining nursing actions and competencies across all settings for all patients and include: Safe, Effective, Care Environment, Psychosocial Integrity, Physiologic Integrity and Health Promotion and Maintenance. These needs also include the provision of care to dying people so that they may have a peaceful, dignified death. Health, the optimal level of wellness, is the functioning at one’s maximum potential while maintaining balance and purposeful direction in the environment. Wellness is an active state, oriented toward maximizing the potential of the individual, regardless of the state of health.

ETHICAL/LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS

Ethics is the systematic, autonomous, critical inquiry of inner values that direct decisions regarding right and wrong as they relate to conduct. Ethics involves the promotion of good and the avoidance of harm to patients under nursing care. Laws affecting nursing practice are standards or rules of conduct established and enforced by the government that are intended to protect the rights of the public and enable nurses to conduct themselves in a manner that is consistent with their personal moral code and professional role responsibilities.

PHARMACOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Medication administration includes the knowledge of medication, classification, actions and interactions, side/adverse effects, nursing implications, and safe administration practices. It is fundamental and imperative for the nurse to competently and safely administer medications and assess the effects of the medication on the patient’s health. This knowledge incorporates the physiological, psychological, and sociological effects of medication administration on patients.

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