At Concordia |
The Integrative Science Center | Students gain knowledge in a classroom-based environment that translates to direct patient care. Faculty engage students through a variety teaching approaches, including lecture, small and large group discussion, case studies, guest speakers, teach-back techniques, educational games, and simulations. Students are expected to be active, engaged learners who develop critical thinking skills essential to the nursing profession.
Our Clinical Team | Our nursing faculty provide supervision and evaluation of student learning in the simulation lab and clinical environments, and our practice partners employed in clinical settings. Within the clinical environment, nursing faculty review and evaluate our students’ clinical preparation, address classroom-based concepts as they apply to the practice setting, and evaluate their clinical skills following each clinical day and at the end of each rotation. Our practice partners are the nurses who work at the bedside and are employed across patient care settings. These clinical team members serve as mentors and preceptors for our students as they engage directly with patients and family members. Our team-based approach intentionally integrates classroom and research-based knowledge into nursing practice.
The Simulation Lab | Students develop competence and confidence in direct patient care skills during the first courses in the major. Our infant, child and adult low and high-fidelity manikins are used by students to practice and demonstrate basic foundational skills from positioning patients to prevent skin breakdown and how to swaddle a newborn, to identification of irregular cardiac rhythms and insertion of nasogastric tubes and IVs. Clinical team members provide feedback to students on their skills demonstrations as they prepare for direct patient care.
In the Community |
Our students begin to apply their knowledge and skill in the clinical environment during the second semester of the major. Clinicals are paired with courses that address a variety of patient ages and care environments. Students engage with patients, family members, nurses and other interdisciplinary team members.
Hospital-based Experience | Students are exposed to hospital-based clinical experiences in major health care centers in the Fargo-Moorhead area. All students complete in-patient clinical rotations in psychiatric-mental health, labor and delivery, newborn nursery, neonatal intensive care (NICU), pediatrics, a pediatric intensive care (PICU), medical-surgical, adult intensive care (ICU), emergency room (ER), and additional specialty units. A 120-hour capstone clinical is completed in the final semester of the major. Within these settings, students demonstrate knowledge, skill and increased autonomy as a member of an interdisciplinary team. Students review assigned patient records, write up pathophysiology, laboratory and medication profiles, and initiate patient care plans. In the practice setting, our clinical faculty, assistants and buddy nurses work with students to provide patient care including assessments, approved direct care practiced in the simulation lab, and patient and family education. Each clinical shift includes debriefing with a clinical team member. In the capstone course, students lead sessions by working through case studies to demonstrate knowledge, professional communication, and critical thinking skills.
Community-based Experiences | Students complete community clinicals with patients across the lifespan in public health, home health, hospice, shelters, a homeless clinic, outpatient programs, and faith communities. In these environments, students engage in various levels of intervention through assessments and screenings, and participate in foot clinics and health fairs. All students plan, implement and evaluate our campus flu clinic in the 2nd and 4th semesters of the major.