Challenging Nursing Students To Apply Orem's Theory To Practice
Challenging RN-BSN Students To Apply Orem’s Theory
To Practice
Susan Davidson, EdD, RN
Abstract:
It is a challenge to engage RN-BSN students in learning to apply nursing theory. In associate degree nursing programs, nursing theory is barely mentioned and not discussed in detail.
This paper reports the experience of one university nursing program that adopted Dorothea Orem’s nursing theory as the basis for its curriculum. The RNs were introduced to Orem’s theory in their first course. Subsequent courses continued to build on this knowledge.
An issue of importance to professional nursing was chosen by the professor for the Nursing Issues course, in their 3rd sequence of classes. In an attempt to engage RN students in applying Orem’s theory, …show more content…
Nursing theory and theorists have a unique vocabulary. This can be confusing initially to RN students who have been educated and practice using a medical model.
The challenge for the nurse educator is to create a learning environment where the RN student not only learns nursing theory and its language, but incorporates it into practice.
The faculty in a baccalaureate program designed an RN-BSN curriculum based on the theory of Dorothea Orem (2001). The traditional
BSN program in the School of Nursing had already organized its curriculum using Orem’s Self Care
Deficit Theory of Nursing. The nine courses in the
RN-BSN program incorporate Orem’s theory. This paper will look at one particular course, the nursing issues course, to demonstrate how Orem’s theory was applied to current practice issues.
The Nursing Issues Course
With the large enrollment in the class, (3050), group projects are one way to maximize the class time and involve all of the students in the learning process. To decrease the stress on the students, the course professor designed a class group project allowing each group to come up with individual ideas to present based on a characteristic of nursing …show more content…
The professional behavior group suggested annual renewal by completing five CEU’s in the following manner: five CEU’s per year for the nurse who has worked 1,600 hours or more; ten
CEU’s per year for the nurse who has worked
Vol: 19 • No: 01 • Fall 2012 • Self-Care, Dependent-Care & Nursing • 17
1,000 to 1,599 hours; and 15 CEU’s per year for the nurse who has worked 200 to 999 hours. For those nurses who have worked less than 200 hours per year, the requirement would be 15
CEU’s and 20 hours volunteer work in a medical setting using nursing knowledge and skills in performing patient care. This group then listed a number of professional nursing organization websites that offer CEU’s. They saw professional behavior as “the ability of nurses to creatively design adequate means for identifying and describing nursing requirements and to design, put into operation, and manage systems of nursing assistance for individuals, families and groups is one characteristic of the professional nurse”
(Orem, 2001, p. 93).
The leadership group included the nurse managers and nurse leaders as well as
To Practice
Susan Davidson, EdD, RN
Abstract:
It is a challenge to engage RN-BSN students in learning to apply nursing theory. In associate degree nursing programs, nursing theory is barely mentioned and not discussed in detail.
This paper reports the experience of one university nursing program that adopted Dorothea Orem’s nursing theory as the basis for its curriculum. The RNs were introduced to Orem’s theory in their first course. Subsequent courses continued to build on this knowledge.
An issue of importance to professional nursing was chosen by the professor for the Nursing Issues course, in their 3rd sequence of classes. In an attempt to engage RN students in applying Orem’s theory, …show more content…
Nursing theory and theorists have a unique vocabulary. This can be confusing initially to RN students who have been educated and practice using a medical model.
The challenge for the nurse educator is to create a learning environment where the RN student not only learns nursing theory and its language, but incorporates it into practice.
The faculty in a baccalaureate program designed an RN-BSN curriculum based on the theory of Dorothea Orem (2001). The traditional
BSN program in the School of Nursing had already organized its curriculum using Orem’s Self Care
Deficit Theory of Nursing. The nine courses in the
RN-BSN program incorporate Orem’s theory. This paper will look at one particular course, the nursing issues course, to demonstrate how Orem’s theory was applied to current practice issues.
The Nursing Issues Course
With the large enrollment in the class, (3050), group projects are one way to maximize the class time and involve all of the students in the learning process. To decrease the stress on the students, the course professor designed a class group project allowing each group to come up with individual ideas to present based on a characteristic of nursing …show more content…
The professional behavior group suggested annual renewal by completing five CEU’s in the following manner: five CEU’s per year for the nurse who has worked 1,600 hours or more; ten
CEU’s per year for the nurse who has worked
Vol: 19 • No: 01 • Fall 2012 • Self-Care, Dependent-Care & Nursing • 17
1,000 to 1,599 hours; and 15 CEU’s per year for the nurse who has worked 200 to 999 hours. For those nurses who have worked less than 200 hours per year, the requirement would be 15
CEU’s and 20 hours volunteer work in a medical setting using nursing knowledge and skills in performing patient care. This group then listed a number of professional nursing organization websites that offer CEU’s. They saw professional behavior as “the ability of nurses to creatively design adequate means for identifying and describing nursing requirements and to design, put into operation, and manage systems of nursing assistance for individuals, families and groups is one characteristic of the professional nurse”
(Orem, 2001, p. 93).
The leadership group included the nurse managers and nurse leaders as well as