Is my school the only one?

I have seen a lot of recent posts about the different nursing courses that some are required to take for their nursing program.

My program literally has 4 nursing classes, 8 credits each. A 3 credit pharmacology class, and 2 one credit pharmacology classes. But the nursing classes are just Nursing I, Nursing II, Nursing III, and Nursing IV with clinicals every semester.

It seems like this is not the common layout for a nursing program. Just curious, what classes does your program include?

We have:

AP

Algebra

Tech

AP2

Micro

Composition

Patho

Basics of Nursing

Pharm

MedSurg1

OB/GYN

Psych

MedSurg2

Mental Health

Communications

MedSurg3

Pediatric Nursing

Composition 2

Capstone

"I've saved some sunlight if you should ever need a place away from darkness where your mind can feed." - Rod McKuen

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

The program I just graduated from has had 4 courses for a very long time. They recently changed the program just a little bit and slightly increased the units. Before the change, the classes were either 10.5 units or 11 units. After the change, all semesters total 12 units and one of the classes was split into two administratively (8u and 4u), but taught as one. Now, technically, they have 5 courses.

Enrolled in an ABSN program and the curriculum is as follows:

Semester 1: Principles & Applications, Health Assessment, Patho, Professional Role Development & Patient Centered Care (clinical course)

Semester 2: Nursing Across Continuum ( for Aging), Adult Health I(+clinical), Psych Nursing (+ clinical), Research in Nursing, and Pharmacology

Semester 3: Adult Health II (+clinical), Peds (+clinical), L and D/OB (+clinical), and Nursing IT

Semester 4: Public Health Nursing, Transitions into Prof Practice, Transitions Practicuum and an elective nursing seminar.

We have:

AP

Algebra

Tech

AP2

Micro

Composition

Patho

Basics of Nursing

Pharm

MedSurg1

OB/GYN

Psych

MedSurg2

Mental Health

Communications

MedSurg3

Pediatric Nursing

Composition 2

Capstone

"I've saved some sunlight if you should ever need a place away from darkness where your mind can feed." - Rod McKuen

I wasn't counting my pre-reqs in that. Those included English 101, Eng 102, Psy 101, Psy 245, Micro, Biology, Chemistry, A/P 1, A/P 2. Maybe a couple others but that may be it.

After pre-reqs, my school had this layout:

Semester 1- Nursing 112 (10 credit hours) and Nurs 138 (1 credit hr)

Semester 2 - Nurs 122A (5 hrs) and Nurs 122B (5 hrs)

Semester 3 - Nurs 216 (10 hrs)

Semester 4 - Nurs 226 (10 hrs)

Clinicals every semester.

There were 2 other 1 credit classes, pharm calculations (which was optional or required depending on if you passed the pharm calc exam each semester) and a pharmacology class (which was optional, if you wanted more pharmacology than was included in the normal nursing class). So it seems that mine was similar to yours.

Okay so mine is not totally different than others. I just see posts all the time where people are referring to multiple nursing classes each semester and I wondered if my program was out of the norm.

the advantage to having the courses split is it makes it easier for students to repeat just one 3 hour class if necessary (instead of having to take the entire 10hr module again) and it also makes it easier if the school offers a part time track.

My nursing program (after prerequisites) is:

1st semester - Introduction to Clinical Nursing (6 credits w/ clinical)

2nd semester - Medical-Surgical I (7 credits w/ clinical) + Reproductive Health (3 credits w/ clinical)

3rd semester - Medical-Surgical II (4 credits w/ clinical) + Psychiatric/Mental Health (4 credits w/ clinical)

4th semester - Medical-Surgical III (4 credits w/ clinical) + Nursing Care of Children (3 credits w/ clinical) + Preparation for Practice (2 credits w/ clinical)

We have the option to take a Dosage Calculations class (1 credit) before the program starts. We also have to pass a "math for medication safety" exam prior to each semester (with 95% or greater) to be able to continue on with the program.

Yeah, my program has separated 1-3 credit hour courses for each semester. I'm taking five 2-credit-hour courses in the fall.

My program is also Nursing I, II, III, IV. With the pre-reqs before. Pharm, patho.. are all intertwined within each semester. It's strange but it works.

[Everline]

We have Fundamentals, then med-surg I, II, and III. We also have OB/Peds and Mental Health I and II and our preceptorship. All of these are separate courses with clinical rotations. This is not including pre-reqs.

]Not in school yet but here is my CC's set up

30 hours Pre-req/Gen ed Classes.

Fundamentals of Nursing (1st Semester) - 8

]Medical Surgical Nursing (2nd Semester) - 5

Psychiatric Nursing (2nd Semester) - 4

Maternal Nursing (3rd Semester) - 4

Pediatric Nursing (3rd Semester) - 4

Advanced Adult Medical Surgical I (4th Semester) - 5

Advanced Adult Medical Surgical II (4th Semester) - 5

Nursing Concepts (4th Semester) - 2

Here's the deal -- every nursing program provides the same basic, required content and clinical experiences (with some minor differences among states). How a particular program organizes and divvies up that content and what it names the courses are entirely up to the individual school. Some states are making more of an effort to standardize nursing curricula across the state. However, this is one of the things that makes it so difficult to transfer among nursing programs. But, since all the programs within a state meet that state BON's requirements for content and clinical experience (or they wouldn't be approved to operate), it doesn't really matter how many individual courses there are or what they are called (however, I certainly don't mean to suggest that there aren't significant differences in quality among programs -- the standards set by the BON are the minimum to be allowed to operate; there are programs that are satisfied to meet the bare minimum, and programs that choose to go "above and beyond.")

[NurseGirl525, ASN, RN]

My school goes by semesters, but the classes are broken up into 4 and 8 weeks each.

Semester 1

Fundamentals of Nursing and Lab

Med/Surg 1 with lab

Clinicals

Semester 2

Med/Surg 2 with lab

Pharamcolgy

Clinicals

Mental Health Nursing

Semester 3

Complex Med/Surg Nursing

Med/Surg Lab

Clinicals

Semester 4

Nursing for childbearing and childbearing families

Lab

Clinicals

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

If I recall correctly, my nursing courses were labeled according to the type of nursing.

So I had classes that were titled advanced med/surg nursing, psychiatric/maternal health nursing, OB/maternal health nursing, community health nursing, pediatric nursing, and so forth. Pharmacology and dosage calculations were incorporated into each class, so I had no separate pharmacology course.

[LadyFree28, BSN, RN]

Here's the deal -- every nursing program provides the same basic, required content and clinical experiences (with some minor differences among states). How a particular program organizes and divvies up that content and what it names the courses are entirely up to the individual school. Some states are making more of an effort to standardize nursing curricula across the state. However, this is one of the things that makes it so difficult to transfer among nursing programs. But, since all the programs within a state meet that state BON's requirements for content and clinical experience (or they wouldn't be approved to operate), it doesn't really matter how many individual courses there are or what they are called (however, I certainly don't mean to suggest that there aren't significant differences in quality among programs -- the standards set by the BON are the minimum to be allowed to operate; there are programs that are satisfied to meet the bare minimum, and programs that choose to go "above and beyond.")

This.

As care as my program; I had Med-Surg I-III; As well as Fundamentals, Health Assessment, Maternal/OB, Peds, Mental Health, Research Nursing, Public Health, and Leadership Nursing.

They were labeled as 300 and 400 level courses.

My program keeps all the courses separate. Thank goodness. I couldn't imagine having to complete an entire semester/module due to not passing one class.