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Licensed Practical Nurses - New Jersey LPN Program
Overview
The Practical Nursing program prepares students to become licensed practical nurses. Students learn to perform tasks and undertake responsibilities core to the provision of providing nursing care, including health counseling, support and restorative care. The program is comprehensive and includes both theory and clinical components to enable program graduates to develop the knowledge, skills and competencies necessary to practice confidently and safely in a rapidly changing health care system. The Practical Nursing program is organized and based on the humanistic model -- every person must be recognized as a unique being, more than and different from a sum of their integrated parts. The program consists of 1,459 hours of education and is arranged in trimesters to provide students with a gradual, step-by-step, simple to complex, learning environment.
Program Mission
The United States is in the midst of a shortage in healthcare providers that is expected to intensify. This problem is both a supply and a demand shortage, combining a broad range of issues that include: steep population growth in several states, limited enrollment opportunities for students at educational institutions offering healthcare training, an aging workforce and a baby boom bubble that will require intense health care services. The Practical Nursing program was established and its mission is to help bridge this labor gap by ensuring a pipeline of highly educated practical nurses that are able to join the health team and contribute to meeting the total needs of the patient.
Program Philosophy
The Center has a holistic approach to the nursing education process. The practical nursing student needs to understand the importance of addressing the physical, emotional, social, economic, and spiritual needs of the patient in an ever-changing, complex society. The faculty believes that for nursing education to address these factors, the following five principles must be understood. The Practical Nursing program is based on and incorporates these principles.
Nursing is a humanistic art and science which incorporates principles from the biological, physical and behavioral sciences. The nurse cooperates with members of the health care team to assess health needs and assist the client to perform those activities which contribute to health. The goal of nursing is to assist the client in attaining, maintaining and restoring health throughout the life cycle. The practical nurse contributes to this goal through the use of the nursing process.
Humans are sentient beings with unique and ever-changing needs. They are comprised of biological, spiritual, psychosocial, and cultural variables, which are fluid and constantly interact with the changing environment. As humans move through the life span, inhabiting different phases of development, wellness, and illness, they continue to inhabit roles in their lives as individuals, members of groups, and cultures. Nurses must recognize this human element and conform their care based on ever changing individual needs.
Health is a vibrant and dynamic phenomenon that results from interactions with the environment and the choices a human makes. The optimally functioning state of psychosocial, biological, cultural, and spiritual realities, health is objectively measured by biological and behavioral measures, and subjectively measured by the human’s perceived realities. Nurses need to view health needs through a humanistic context, and promote it through understanding, caring, risk reduction, and symptom/illness management.
Environment is a confluence of social, scientific, economic, legal, political, cultural, physical, and psychological factors. The environment influences human health status as humans interact with their environment on a daily basis. To provide effective care nurses must understand and embrace the stimuli surrounding and affecting their patient and develop and adapt care plans recognizing the influence of these factors.
The teaching-learning process is essential to the practice of nursing. Teaching and learning can be capitalized through a gradual, step-by-step, simple to complex process that correlates through concurrent instruction theory and hands-on practice. The process of teaching and learning is fostered by an open, receptive and democratic environment which nurtures the individual's efforts and motivation to learn. Teaching and learning are influenced by the individual differences in ability and background of its participants. All teaching and learning should bring individuals closer to self-actualization. The teaching and learning process is effective when desirable changes are validated in the learner’s competence.
Program Objectives
Students in the Practical Nursing program shall acquire the following competencies:
- Apply the nursing process as a systematic problem solving method to provide effective care to culturally diverse individuals, families, and groups.
- Use nursing theory and theory from other disciplines as a basis for the nursing process to promote health and healing.
- Use therapeutic nursing to achieve optimal level of health.
- Demonstrate safety and effectiveness in performance of nursing skills.
- Employ critical thinking to provide the highest level of nursing care from patient assessment to evaluation.
- Utilize ethical principles to resolve ethical dilemmas in a health care environment.
- Accept responsibility and accountability for adhering to the high standards of nursing practice as mandated by the nurse practice act.
- Implement strategies to stimulate and support change needed to improve the quality of health care practice.
- Adapt care in consideration of the clients values, customs, culture, religion and/or beliefs.
- Be prepared to take the NCLEX exam for LPN Licensure.
- Display responsible behaviors and a commitment to excellence in interactions with patients, families, colleagues, and employing organizations.
- Demonstrate understanding of boundaries and the legal scope of professional practice as an LPN.
- Utilize professional values and standards as a basis for ethical nursing practice.
- Communicate effectively using interpersonal skills combined with information technology.
Program Structure
The Center has divided its curriculum into three semesters. Each one focuses and builds on concepts, skills, and outcomes learned in the prior trimester. Each course in a trimester includes specific knowledge and skills that are required to be mastered for course completion. The Practical Nursing program consists of 1,459 hours of classroom and clinical education. Theory and clinical experiences are conducted concurrently throughout the program. The theoretical and clinical work is basically equally distributed.
1st Trimester
Through Fundamentals of Nursing our students are introduced and educated on the roles of providers of care, manager of care, member of the discipline of nursing and overview of the human experience of health, illness and death. This course serves as the foundation for indoctrinating our students concerning Nursing, Humans, Health and Environment. Students examine fundamental concepts of culture, spirituality, grief and grieving, with application of concepts of stress, adaptation and coping to their role as learner of health promotion and wellness behaviors. Students also develop the knowledge of nursing practice and the law. Concepts of liability, malpractice, negligence and HIPPA are examined and discussed. Moreover, ethical responsibilities and the concepts of ethics in nursing as they relate to humanistic approach to patient care are discussed.
Through Anatomy & Physiology, students develop knowledge in structure and function of the human body, and some of the effects that individual choices have on its development. During this trimester, students develop their medical terminology vocabulary and enable them to use their knowledge throughout the health field. At the end of the first quarter, students will have obtained the basic knowledge and achieved the required competencies for certified nursing assistant, which makes the students eligible and prepared to take the licensure exam to become a certified nursing assistant.
2nd Trimester
In the second trimester, the progression of integrating our philosophy and organizing framework continues through the following courses: Adult Nursing I and Pharmacology. Our Adult Nursing I course focuses on applying and augmenting the knowledge and clinical skills acquired from Fundamentals and other previous courses. Students are required to perform at a more advanced level, including correlating theory to clinical practice and applying our philosophies in Nursing, Health and Environment to clinical practice at a higher level. The concepts of body mechanics, pharmacology, interpersonal relationships, communication, diet therapy and the physical and biological sciences are also stressed throughout the course.
Through Pharmacology our students gain an understanding of specific drug groups emphasizing physiological classifications and generic nomenclature. The course integrates the knowledge of physiology, chemistry, nursing fundamentals, calculations, interpretation of medication orders, as well as the knowledge and ability to administer medications safely. Discussion of specific physiological drug groups are organized according to their use in treating alterations in health and disease processes. The systematic problem solving approach is applied to the administration of medications emphasizing the following: identifying the altered health pattern for which the medication is administered, promoting and monitoring therapeutic effect, observing for and minimizing adverse effects, and evaluating the effectiveness of drug therapy.
3rd Trimester
In the third trimester, our philosophy, organizing framework, program objectives and program outcomes are further reinforced through theory and clinical experiences in relation to the specific patient populations. Students learn and demonstrate their comprehensive and mastery of skills in the following five specialties: Adult Nursing II, Pediatric Nursing, Maternal/Child Nursing and Mental Health Nursing. The experience is comprehensive, reflecting the unique, acute and sub-acute care environment specific to the course.
The class schedule and hours of classroom/ clinical/laboratory instruction and practice for the Practical Nursing program are set prior to the start of each trimester. Students in the day program are typically in class between 7 and 8 hours each day and the typical hours for the program are 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Students in the Professional program are in class from 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. during the week and from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on the weekend. This structure allows The Center to provide a balanced and well-delivered program. Classes (theory, clinical and laboratory) are expected to meet for their entire scheduled times.
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