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?
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.")
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
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.
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.
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.
We had what's called an Integrated Program set up like yours, OP. We covered each area (ob, peds, psych, med-surg, fundamentals, etc) each semester, and each semester was organized by acuity.
The idea was that you'd be better prepared for NCLEX if you built on every concept throughout the entire program, but I'm not really buying it.
I was on the waiting list for an ADN nursing school at a community college in California. They had the same situation. I was under the impression that many of the community college nursing programs in the Bay Area and central California were like this, but I could be mistaken. I'm in an Accelerated BSN program in Oregon now and they follow a state-regulated schedule where the classes are named according to their subject matter, but I don't much about it. I'm just going with the flow. :)
FutureRNBets
20 Posts
]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