School of Nursing Philosophy

Consistent with the mission of Pittsburgh Technical College as a whole, the School of Nursing supports the empowerment of students to succeed in life, through the development of general knowledge and skills, as well as discipline-specific knowledge and skills.  Through the mastery of these competencies, graduates will be prepared to realize their career goals and their full potential.

The faculty believes that nursing is integral to the effectiveness of health care delivery.  We intend to empower students to succeed by integrating general health concepts, professional skills, and science-based knowledge in career-focused educational programs.  Our programs will prepare our students with the necessary skills to enter the workforce and participate on the health care team.  Skills in communication, thinking and reasoning, social responsibility, personal development, and application of information technology will lead to career success and improved health outcomes for patients, families, and communities served by our graduates.

Health is explained as the dynamic interaction between physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of human beings.  Each individual is unique and worthy of respect, dignity, and compassion.  The health care choices humans make are influenced by their interactions within significant relationships and their cultural values, life expectations, and the reality of their environment and context.  Relationships based on trust become the basis for health care delivery.  Care is extended to patients and their loved ones, with a focus on achieving optimal health and wellness, but also the provision of support during times of dying and death.

Nursing is an art and a science-based profession, based on compassionate behavior, clinical competencies, cultural sensitivity, and ethical principles that promote health, healing, and disease management.  Nursing practice must meet standards set by the profession to protect and serve society.  Nursing’s core values include caring, effective communication, teamwork, advocacy, and ethics.  Nurses use nursing process to assess, plan, implement, evaluate, and revise care based on the needs of patients, families, groups, and communities.  The use of critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills leads to sound prioritizations and clinical judgments which result in decisions that promote holistic, high quality, safe care.   Quality and safety are seen as priorities in clinical practice.

Through the application of research and the use of principles of evidence-based practice, nurses promote changes in individuals, families, groups, communities, and health care organizations in order to provide care that leads to positive health outcomes.  Nurses assume roles that include care provider, patient advocate, teacher, communicator, change agent, care coordinator, user of information technology, collaborator, and decision-maker.  Patient-centered care is essential as nurses convey respect for the dignity and autonomy of human beings as decision-makers in their own health and disease management.

The faculty believes that optimal learning takes place in a supportive environment characterized by mutual respect that values individual differences, emphasizes collaboration, stimulates creativity, builds individual potential, and fosters lifelong learning.  The faculty accepts accountability for providing a diversity of theoretical and clinical learning experiences designed to be individualized and foster nursing judgment.  Knowledge and skills from general education and the sciences are integrated into the curriculum so that students are able to apply nursing process in culturally sensitive ways with diverse populations across the lifespan.  The faculty values an educational process that engages the learner and produces identifiable changes in that learner.  The faculty also values learning experiences that develop teamwork and collaborative skills in working with healthcare providers from other disciplines.

Learning experiences proceed from simple to complex in order to help students assume the roles associated with the practice of nursing, and are based on principles of adult learning which emphasize active participation by students.  These learning experiences emphasize instructional techniques that engage learners in the application of content to their clinical practice in order to meet individual learning goals.  It is the faculty’s responsibility to consider individual learning styles, to integrate proven best practices into classroom and clinical learning experiences, and to develop a commitment in students to search for the best available evidence for nursing practice.  It is also the faculty’s responsibility to hold students to the highest possible standards of care and accountability.  To accomplish these responsibilities, the faculty communicates effectively with each other and with students, and provides mentoring which creates a culture in which students can persistently work at their career goals.  Extensive clinical practice is included as part of the program and feedback is sought from representatives of healthcare settings so that the curriculum prepares its graduates for the realities of the present and future work environment.

Since today’s patients, families, groups, and communities use technology as a tool for communication and as a source of health information, the faculty believes that an integration of information management and technology is key in the learning experiences provided for students.  Ethical principles related to the use of information and technologies are key to professional nursing practice in the future, and are featured in the curriculum.

Graduates of the Practical Nursing Certificate Program, upon successful completion of the national licensure examination (NCLEX-PN), are qualified to work as Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN) in a variety of healthcare settings, such as medical centers, hospitals, outpatient clinics, surgical centers, physicians’ offices, hospice care, home care, and long term care facilities, under the supervision of a registered nurse or licensed physician.  As members of the health care team, our graduates will complete focused holistic assessments of patients, provide basic care, administer medications and fluids, complete selected treatment procedures, offer health education, and apply nursing process to promote safe, high quality care.  As a result of their preparation and skill sets, licensed practical nurses are an essential care provider in the health care delivery system.

Graduates of the Associate in Science, Nursing Program, upon successful completion of the national licensure examination (NCLEX-RN), are qualified to work as Registered Nurses (RN) in a wide variety of health care settings, such as hospitals, long term care facilities, specialty treatment facilities, home care, hospice, and ambulatory care.  Our graduates will complete comprehensive holistic assessments of patients and families, and based on the analysis of the assessment data, will use clinical reasoning skills and clinical judgment to plan care according to current evidence and best practice.  In the process of implementation of care, our graduates will prioritize patient safety and quality, while promoting patient-centered care.  Thus, these registered nurses will be essential contributors to the positive health outcomes of the individuals and families we serve.

This faculty believes that the practice of nursing requires a commitment to lifelong learning.  This commitment reflects a spirit of inquiry, where nurses display a constant curiosity which empowers them to raise questions, to consider new and more effective approaches to health care, and to think and suggest innovative ways to solve practice problems.  The faculty believes this spirit of inquiry is developed and instilled in nursing students during their experiences with us, and is a priority for the educational process.  The faculty also believes that graduates should continue their education in a formal sense with articulation to other college or university nursing programs that offer baccalaureate and graduate degrees in nursing.  Ultimately, through partnerships between the faculty, the students, and the clinical agencies, the development of a nursing identity will occur as a result of the learning experiences provided.