College of Graduate Nursing Mission
The College of Graduate Nursing at Western University of Health Sciences offers a variety of programs for entry-level, ADN, BSN, and MSN-prepared students to achieve an advanced practice degree in nursing through a Web-based and on-campus seminar weekend educational delivery model. All graduate programs are BRN approved and professionally accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the accrediting body for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The College of Graduate Nursing faculty foster excellence, creativity, innovation, self-reflection, personal and professional accountability, collaboration, cultural sensitivity, a passion for caring, leadership, and lifelong scholarship.
In accordance with the mission of Western University of Health Sciences, the faculty endeavor to:
- Promote the health and healing of diverse communities through high quality graduate nursing education.
- In a learner centered model, create an environment that enhances each individual s intellectual and professional capacity via mentoring, inter-professional collaboration, technology (simulation) and clinical experiences guided by objectives.
- Value clinical relevance by engaging in faculty practice, research, and other scholarly activities.
- Fosters excellence, creativity, innovation, self-reflection, leadership, personal and professional accountability, collaboration, cultural sensitivity, and a passion for lifelong scholarship.
College of Graduate Nursing Philosophy
The College of Graduate Nursing (CGN) is distinguished by the faculty's beliefs about nursing, persons, environment, health, and nursing education:
Nursing as a professional discipline is an art and a humanistic science of caring. The art of nursing is in its understanding of the meaning of a holistic health-illness experience and the perception of the moral and ethical significance of care, as well as the integration of technical skill with relevant theory (Chinn and Kramer, p. 189-90)1. The art of nursing employs critical thinking and respect; it fosters open and effective oral and written communication with clients and colleagues. The humanistic science of nursing is the generation and application of the body of theoretical nursing knowledge, behavioral and natural science, the humanities, and the arts, employed in a caring, respectful manner.
The professional practice of nursing is the directing of knowledge, competencies, and processes toward assisting persons to achieve quality of life, health, well being or peaceful death. Advanced practice nursing competencies are complex psychomotor and interpersonal skills, leadership, collaboration, self-evaluation, and scientific application and inquiry that are guided by professional standards. Processes include critical thinking, accountability, problem solving, decision-making, caring, advocacy, and involvement. Knowledge for graduate nursing is built upon the foundation acquired in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and its related arts and sciences, as well as information gained from prior nursing experience. Expertise for the master's prepared nurse focuses on socio-cultural, ethical, economic and political issues, advanced technology, theory, research, and advanced physical and psychological sciences. Evidence-based professional nursing practice demands recognition that each individual has unique needs that can be assessed and incorporated into a research-based nursing care plan.
Persons who participate in family-centered nursing care are individuals with unique lifestyles, knowledge, beliefs and values, needs, and goals and are able to make autonomous decisions. These clients of nursing involve complex biological, behavioral, emotional, sociocultural, philosophical and spiritual dimensions and interact dynamically with their environment. Clients interact through relationships with families, in various forms, and communities. Persons have a right and responsibility to participate collaboratively with nurses and other health professionals in decisions and shared accountability for outcomes.
Environment is both the internal and external contexts of the individual. Environment involves multidimensional and dynamic forces, which affect the person's health and well being.
Health is a multidimensional, adaptive state of being reflecting internal and external environmental and developmental influences. Health is a relative condition, characterized by wellness, illness, disease, or dysfunction. Health may be a reflection of individual perceptions of balance and harmony.
Nursing Education is a process that provides opportunities to expand and extend knowledge for continued growth and competency of the individual and the profession. It draws on multiple disciplines and involves organized learning experiences that augment previous knowledge and skills in preparation to practice professional nursing. Nursing education is a flexible process which fosters creativity, and independent and critical thinking. We value self-directed learners, continual learning, and active engagement in a teaching/learning partnership. The educational process supports personal, social and intellectual development while assisting students to attain academic and professional goals. Through the provision of meaningful learning experiences, nursing education seeks to assist the learner to formulate and structure nursing knowledge, while distinguishing relevant from non-relevant information and developing safe and effective nursing practice. The educational program seeks to evoke honesty, excitement of discovery, encourage self-expression and serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning.
Teachers and learners in the learning community engage in interactive processes, which enhance the potential and respect of each person. Teachers act as facilitators, and through their expertise and skill, are role models for student professional practice. The faculty as a whole focuses on the provision and organization of the curriculum and provides a milieu that encourages questioning, growth, and mutual evaluation.
The CGN faculty believes that students are active, self-directed adult learners who are committed to safe and effective professional practice and rigorous courses of study. Students are accountable for integrity of academic accomplishments, professional practice and self-assessment. Students bring unique backgrounds and have individual goals which create differing responses to the learning process. Learning is a personal responsibility.
1Chinn, PL & Kramer, MK.(1999). Theory and nursing: Integrated knowledge development (5th ed). St. Louis: Mosby.