What Exactly Is Nursing Fundamentals

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Hello. I am taking nursing fundamentals and Advanced A&P next semester. I believe Nursing Fundamentals has to do with nursing history and theory. However, I am not sure what else it is about and what to expect in this class. Our school lets us take this class a semester before you enter the program. (I'm entering Fall 2011) Can anyone let me know what this class is about and what to expect? Thanks so much. :)

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Specializes in Psych.

At my school, we spent less than a day on history and theory. Fundamentals was all about the nursing process, skills, prioritization of care, the nurse's scope of practice (a.k.a. what you can do on your own and what you need an order for), med administration, therapeutic communication, nursing diagnoses, how to develop a nursing care plan/concept map, clean vs. aseptic technique and so forth. It really forms the basis of every class that follows, except maybe Pharmacology. Also, unlike other courses where you might pull a few ideas forward, what you learn in Fundamentals will be used for the rest of nursing school. Does that help?

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At my school, we spent less than a day on history and theory. Fundamentals was all about the nursing process, skills, prioritization of care, the nurse's scope of practice (a.k.a. what you can do on your own and what you need an order for), med administration, therapeutic communication, nursing diagnoses, how to develop a nursing care plan/concept map, clean vs. aseptic technique and so forth. It really forms the basis of every class that follows, except maybe Pharmacology. Also, unlike other courses where you might pull a few ideas forward, what you learn in Fundamentals will be used for the rest of nursing school. Does that help?

It definitely helps. Thank you. Would you or someone else be able to elaborate on med administration? Will there be a lot of math, conversions etc? I am wondering where I should focus my preparations for this next semester. Also, you mention care plans. Do we begin writing them in this class?

Thanks again.

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Specializes in Psych.

There's a methodology to med administration. You make sure you have the right drug, dose, route (oral, IV, etc.), patient, time and documentation. Before you actually give the drug, you verify it according to the Medication Administration Record at three different points in the process. All of this should be in your textbook. I read a Fundamentals text about a year before I started nursing school because my local library had a copy. It all seemed so common sense that it was hard to retain any of it. Luckily, the pressure of reading it again in school helped cement it in my brain!

We definitely put together care plans in my Fundamentals class, but your school may organize it differently. Same goes for clinical calculations. We had math exams at the beginning of every semester, plus there were always a few math questions on every exam. I thought our fourth semester was awesome because they were giving 5 math questions on every Med/Surg exam and that was 10 easy points for each test. Once you have your favorite method for solving a nursing math question, stick with it! I felt like a trained monkey with those questions, but I never got them wrong. Ratios make sense to me, but other people just love dimensional analysis. Whatever works for your brain is the method to use.

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for me Nursing Concepts was history & all that type of stuff. Plus some wound grading, airway stuff, nursing theories & diagnoses. Fundamentals was where we did all of our NG tubes, IV PB, enema, iv starts, injections, etc. It was basically the skill class. Thats MY program though.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

The nursing class that we had to take prior to entering the nursing program was called Intro to Nursing. I was so excited for this class until I actually got to the class. They might have changed the curriculum of the class because this was 4 years ago, but our class consisted of reading "nursing stories" and we had to do presentations on the material and our "feelings." some of the presentations were in groups, others were by yourself. and you wouldn't know if you were presenting that day - it was totally random. it was AWFUL. the other part of the class was a textbook on how to be an effective studier and how to search for research articles - we would even do random presentations on that! there was also a short paper we had to write on an area of nursing that was interesting to us. Overall, the class was horrible.

Our REAL Nursing Fundamentals class (called Foundations of Nursing at my school and there are 2 semesters) went over basic nursing skills - communication, documentation, drug administration/calculations, injections, dressing changes, personal care, restraint use, transferring/ambulation, vital signs, etc etc etc....overall I really enjoyed this class. Foundations 2 was more about "theory" and I hated it - it was so dry and boring.

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So it looks like I need to devote some time to learning nursing math before entering the Nursing Fundamentals class. YIKES!! I better get started. :)

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But the nursing math (for me, anyway) isnt too bad. Its all pretty much vol/time x constant, or desire/have x quantity

Well, SO FAR, anyway. I just finished my 1st semester, and thats the math we learned. I can tell you that Heparin protocols are verrryyyyyy confusing to learn though.

The only classes we were required to take were the prereqs... They were all gen eds, though. No pre nursing class

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Specializes in Private Practice- wellness center.

Don't sweat Med Math too much. I'm lucky in that my school has an ENTIRE class dedicated to it. Rather than memorizing a bunch of formulas, try to learn dimensional analysis. It is SOOOOOOOOOOO much easier than the other methods and almost fool proof in that you can see any calculation errors while doing the problem.

The fundamentals class is a bit dry, but you will learn a LOT- and as was already mentioned, the basis of everything we do as a nurse. :D

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
So it looks like I need to devote some time to learning nursing math before entering the Nursing Fundamentals class. YIKES!! I better get started. :)

Nursing math is pretty straightforward, just your basic operations and a few easy formulas to remember to help figure out dosages, if you learn better by using formulas. Some are better with ratio/proportion, dimensional analysis, etc.

A good (free!) resource is DosageHelp.com - Helping Nursing Students Learn Dosage Calculations. For books, I highly recommend Calculate with Confidence by Deborah Gray Morris.

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Hello. I am taking nursing fundamentals and Advanced A&P next semester. I believe Nursing Fundamentals has to do with nursing history and theory. However, I am not sure what else it is about and what to expect in this class. Our school lets us take this class a semester before you enter the program. (I'm entering Fall 2011) Can anyone let me know what this class is about and what to expect? Thanks so much. :)

We covered nothing about the history of the field which I was ok with, and we spent less than ten minutes talking about advanced practice roles. They never covered the role of LPNs and CNAs. We had a ten chapter unit that covered the nursing process, which was dry and not all that interesting, and then we had successive chapters that seemed more like sociology than anything else. Stress, legal, ethics, mobility/immobility, caring, spirituality, multiculturalism, urinating, defacating, skin, oxygenation, and fluids and electrolytes, vital signs, and medication administration were other chapters.

The more physiological the chapter the better the lesson was because I like the scientific aspects more than the caregiver aspects. The psychomotor skills covered, although covered very quickly, were giving pills, shots, washing people, changing sheets, getting people out of bed, washing your hands, assorted tube feedings, cleaning ostomies, dropping nasogastric tubes, and pushing Foley catheters.

We had separate three hour courses in pharmacology and health assessment so none of that was covered in foundations (fundamentals) for us. Your program may vary.

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Did anyone use the potter book for fundamentals? If so did you also purchase the study guide and/or clinical companion & were the additional books helpful?

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