Nursing Student Handbook - John Tyler Community College

and skills.
• active student involvement in the learning process and acceptance of responsibility for learning
and the attainment of identified goals.
We believe associate degree nursing education:
prepares an individual to provide cost-effective, direct nursing care for clients within an organized
system of health care.
takes place in an institution of higher learning where general education courses are offered along
with nursing courses.
incorporates concepts that allow the student to develop a base of understanding of the individual
client and the relationship within the family, groups, and the community.
C. Conceptual Model
The JTCC Nursing Program curriculum uses the program philosophy as a foundation for curriculum
development. The organizing framework is drawn from the program philosophy. This framework
provides a conceptual “blueprint” for both the curricular sequence, as well as the individual courses.
The JTCC Nursing Program organizing framework involves the use of the nursing process to meet client
needs within the roles of the associate degree nurse (ADN) as the overarching conceptual organizer. The
mission of John Tyler Community College serves as the catalyst for the conceptual model. The structure
of our model is our philosophical beliefs about our major concepts. The process of our program is based
on the NLN competencies for nursing graduates that serve as the foundation on which our student
outcomes are based and evaluated. The outcomes for our program are aligned with the PEW Foundation
practice outcomes for all health-care practitioners. The structure, process and outcomes of our program
are subsumed within and contextually bound to the teaching/learning environment in which we exist.
Within this conceptual organizer, one will also find the threads of: effective communication and
collaboration as a member of the health-care team; the concepts of therapeutic communication; teaching
and learning principles; and ethical, legal, and professional responsibility and accountability. The
student learns to apply the nursing process to meet the needs of clients in various stages of the
developmental life cycle, from birth until death with attention to cultural congruence throughout. The
nursing process is used to manage care for individuals, families, and groups in an efficient, cost-effective
manner in a variety of health-care settings. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the framework used to
prioritize the client’s needs when planning client care.
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