This document is meant as a planning guide only.  Students are advised to consult with the Bachelor of Nursing Student Advisor if they have specific questions about the program.

NURSING PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY

Vision

We are responsive, respectful, engaging, and innovative leaders in nursing education, practice, and scholarship in rural, urban, and global contexts.

Mission

We are committed to, and responsible for, the professional development of nursing students who demonstrate excellence in, and advocate for, compassionate, safe, competent, culturally responsive, and ethical care in collaboration with individuals, families, and communities.

Values 

Graduates of the Bachelor of Nursing (BN) Program will make a meaningful difference to the lives of others, embracing cultural humility, creating, and disseminating new knowledge, and sharing expertise and resources with local to global communities.

Guiding Principles

• Curiosity and Engagement
• Relational Practice
• Collaboration
• Fitness to Practice
• Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

PROGRAM OUTCOMES

 Graduates will: 

1. Critically appraise and apply knowledge and skills in the provision of safe, compassionate, ethical, and competent care.
2. Communicate effectively while developing relational practice competencies.
3. Advocate for health, wellbeing, and social justice.
4. Demonstrate professionalism.
5. Practice with a global and diverse perspective.

Teaching and Learning Approaches: 

Philosophy of Nursing Education

Nurses must have both a breadth and depth of knowledge, as well as the ability to integrate that knowledge into complex and ever-changing situations.  To effectively prepare students for nursing practice, nurse educators must teach with a sense of salience, situated in particular clinical situations (Benner et al., 2010).

Students

Each student is a unique individual, who comes to the nursing education program with a personal self that has developed through a variety of life experiences.  Each student is an adult learner, with preferred learning styles, and individual learning needs.  Students come from diverse backgrounds and have different perspectives, values and beliefs that enrich the learning environment. Students are also members of a family, a community, and larger society that shapes their educational journey.

Educators

Educators, like students, are unique individuals, with a personal self that has developed through unique life experiences. Educators have expertise in nursing concepts, nursing practice and nursing education. They strive to continually expand their knowledge through life-long learning and participate in the creation and dissemination of new knowledge through research and scholarship activities.

Student-Centered Teaching and Learning

Student-centered learning is an approach to the teaching/learning situation that acknowledges that students are all individuals with preferred learning styles and unique experiences who actively participate in the learning process. In student-centered learning, the teaching/learning situation is structured in such a way as to require students to be accountable for their own learning by having students participate in identifying what they need to learn and taking steps to acquire what the student has identified as requisite knowledge. The educator role in student-centered learning is that of facilitator rather than authority and the source of knowledge. Educators structure the teaching/learning situations in such as way as to allow students to experience learning in a meaningful way and capitalize on unanticipated learning opportunities as they present. Structuring situations involves providing access to multiple sources of information and multiple modalities by which to access it. Underpinning the notion of student-centred learning is that the educator demonstrates caring for the students. Through student-centred learning, students acquire knowledge, and can practice required skills to become professional nurses, thus developing into a knowing, doing, being nurse.

Situated Learning

An experiential approach to nursing education prepares students for the complexity of clinical nursing practice. In today’s practice environment, nurses must have both a breadth and depth of knowledge, as well as the ability to integrate that knowledge into particular, and ever changing, client situations.  To effectively prepare students for nursing practice, nursing knowledge must be situated within the context of particular client experiences (Benner et al. 2010).  With an experiential approach, faculty members focus on facilitating learning by progressively increasing knowledge and skills; incorporating previous knowledge, skills, and experiences; encouraging and supporting the student to consider their values, diversity, geography, historical, and other contextual issues as well as the person for whom they are caring; using and supporting reflective practices and strategies; and supporting the student to ‘test things out’ in the classroom and lab, through case studies and simulation activities, and apply their learning in the clinical setting.

 Sources of Knowledge

All types of knowledge are important for guiding the beginning practitioner. Carper (1978) described four fundamental patterns (ways) of knowing as empirical, ethics, personal, and aesthetics. Chinn and Kramer (2018) added emancipatory as a fifth pattern and noted that these ways of knowing support integration of: theory to practice, the art and science of nursing, knowing, and doing.  In the application of nursing knowledge in the specific client situation, moral and ethical judgements are exercised. The individual constructs knowledge by integrating nursing knowledge, knowledge from other disciplines, personal knowledge, and linking this constructed knowledge to one’s own experiences. Reflection, critical thinking, and inquiry facilitate understanding one’s construction of knowledge.  The integration of concepts, clinical reasoning, and the development of clinical judgment occurs with practice and over time (Gonzalez et al., 2021; Tanner, 2006).

High School Course Requirements

Applications will be accepted from students who meet the Brandon University admission requirements. Although not required for admission to Brandon University, Biology 40S is a pre- requisite for Anatomy & Physiology/Biology of Life and Math 40S Pre-Calculus or Applied is a pre-requisite for Introduction to Statistics. Grade 12 English is required. As a result of pre- requisite requirements for Anatomy & Physiology/Biology of Life and Introduction to Statistics, it is highly recommended that students entering Pre-Nursing have completed Biology 40S and Math 40S Pre-Calculus or Applied.

Career/Graduate School Opportunities

The Bachelor of Nursing Program prepares graduates to work as Registered Nurses (RNs) in a variety of settings. Registered Nurses may assume any one of the following roles:

• Direct care provider to individuals and families with acute or long-term illnesses in institutions or in the community
• Educational institutions – working in the educational environment teaching nursing students theory and clinical based practice
• Administrative areas – assuming responsibility for leading other members of the health care team and for coordinating services

The BN Program attracts men and women, and gender-diverse people who are willing to make a career commitment. RNs participate as members of the health care team to promote health and to prevent illness.

Professional nurses associations in Canada are predicting a dramatic increase in the demand for nurses. The starting salary for Registered Nurses in Manitoba is approximately $80,000 per year. Graduates of the BN program are eligible for application to Graduate Programs.

BN Program Structure:

*These courses are for LPN-BN Transfer Credit students only