Advanced Nursing Practice

Catalog description

The purpose of this course is to prepare graduate nurses with higher level knowledge and skills in assessment, diagnostic, reasoning, and management of client problems within a society area of clinical practice. This course is a comprehensive coverage of advanced physiological mechanisms and specific pathologies affecting all of the major organ systems of the human body and advanced health assessment skills with an emphasis on concepts of health promotion, risk management, and disease prevention. The focus is on causality of alternations in human physiological functions in the adult population. Strong emphasis is placed on developing sound clinical decision-making abilities based on an understanding advanced pathophysiology. The concepts of normal physiology and pathological phenomena as a result of altered states of health are contrasted. The human physiological responses to various diseases and disorders are examined in detail from the micro (cellular) and macro (organ) level. Diagnostic tests, laboratory values, and treatment methods pertinent to identifying and managing these alterations in health are discussed. Course assignments are laboratory practice activities enhance the student's history taking, physical assessment, and critical thinking skills essential for planning, delivering, and evaluating health care.