What is a Clinical Nurse Specialist?
December 23, 2008 by Rn2b
Filed under Clinical Nurse (CNS), Finding Your Nursing Job, Nurse Programs
What is a Clinical Nurse Specialist?
Educators first developed the clinical nurse specialist (CNS) role because of their concern for improving nursing care. They believed that improvement was dependent upon increasing expertise at the bedside, giving direct and indirect care, and incorporating role modeling and consultation
The role of a CNS has evolved to include many specialties particularly in psychiatric care. The impressive development of this masteral program helped to initiate the other CNS specialty courses. Thus, clinical specialization in graduate education increased tremendously. Graduates would provide a high level of specialized nursing care and serve as change agents in hospital settings.
A good portion of time is spent in the hospital, in both staff and patient/family education. A clinical nurse specialist is also into developing protocols, standards and pathways that will guide nursing practice. A CNS also serves as a direct care provider, educator/consultant, researcher and leader. Areas of focus can encompass adult, pediatric and obstetric patients. Different medical departments like oncology, the cardiopulmonary system, the pulmonary system and others are also included.
What are the competencies attributed to a CNS?
• In-depth knowledge expertise
• Demonstrating clinical expertise in a selected area of clinical practice.
• Can be emulated by others professionally and personally.
• Serving as practitioner/teacher, consultant and researcher.
The past years had seen the influx of the greatest percentage of APNs as clinical nurse specialists. In order to achieve this specialization, one should prepare for a graduate nursing education program. This is primarily hospital based and can be consultative in nature.
Who enrolls in the University of Phoenix Online Nursing Programs?
December 23, 2008 by Rn2b
Filed under Licensed Practical and Vocational Nurse (LPN/LVN), Nurse Programs
Who enrolls in the University of Phoenix Online Nursing Programs?
Some think that online education is a totally individual or isolated effort. With the University of Phoenix Online Nursing Programs, this is hardly the case. The school implements teamwork where virtual teams of students interact and get to work with each other for projects.
Aside from any one student submitting his assignment, he is also encouraged to work with others in a team for a certain course-long project. The University of Phoenix (UoP) promotes teamwork skills by building collaborations among team members regardless of their location.
Most of the students targeted by the UoP for its online education programs are adults that have been working for around 5 years already. These people have been quite focused on their current careers for some time, and now they are considering pursuing their education by enrolling online.
The classes are designed so that the students are not required to attend on set times or schedules. This way, the UoP will be able to assist people in advancing their education despite their hectic work schedules. But not to be misunderstood, the UoP requires the enrollees to log in four times every week to participate in the classes or discussions. Assignments will also have to be posted every week. The flexibility lies in the fact that the students get to choose their own days and time.
People who usually take any of the University of Phoenix Online Nursing Programs are:
– Those who are in the health care industry already and would like to advance their careers
– Those who would like to continue their nursing education to pursue the career
– Those who are shifting careers or industries
Two Types of Nursing Graduate Education
December 23, 2008 by Rn2b
Filed under Finding Your Nursing Job, Medical Assistant (MA)
Two Types of Nursing Graduate Education
After obtaining a baccalaureate degree in nursing, a nurse can pursue further education in any number of graduate fields, including nursing. You can receive the degree of Master of Arts (MA) in Nursing, Master in Nursing (MN) or Master of Science in Nursing (MSN).
The nursing graduate degree provides the advanced clinician with strong skills in nursing science and theory with emphasis in the basic sciences and research-based clinical practice. A master’s degree in nursing can be valuable for nurses seeking roles or nurse educator, clinical nurse specialist, nurse administrator or nurse practitioner
Professional doctoral programs in nursing (DSN or DNSc) emphasize the application of research findings to clinical nursing. Other programs emphasize more basic research and theory and award the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in nursing.
The need for nurses with doctorate degrees is rising. Expanding clinical roles, new areas of nursing such as nursing informatics and rapidly advancing technology are just a few reasons for increasing the number of doctorate-prepared nurses. It is important to continue to do research in this kind of profession.
Nursing graduate degree programs are needed to educate the beginning nurse and those seeking advanced academic and clinical preparation. Because nursing is a dynamic profession, continuing education programs help nurses remain current in nursing skills, knowledge and theory.
The goals of pursuing a graduate degree education in nursing are to improve and maintain nursing practice, promote and exercise leadership in effecting change in health care delivery systems and fulfill professional learning needs.