Follow directions on the [Undergraduate Course Registration] form to register in the course. Online course materials cannot be accessed prior to your course contract start date.
Overview
Nursing 438: Trends and Issues in Nursing and Health Systems introduces students to the position of nursing in the Canadian health care system. Perspectives to be explored include social, political, organizational, and legal/ethical factors. The continuing debate about the essence of nursing including professional issues is examined. The politics of health is discussed within the context of the Canadian health care system. Current issues are critically analyzed in relation to their influence on the nursing profession and nursing practice.
Outline
Unit 1: Identifying Personal Values, Beliefs and Attitudes
Unit 2: Articulating and Analyzing Current Nursing and Health Care System Trends and Issues
Unit 3: Identifying Appropriate Issue Resolution Strategies
Unit 4: Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing Practice
Unit 5: Nursing Education
Unit 6: Professional Nursing Organizations
Unit 7: Nursing Workplace Environments
Unit 8: Interpersonal Violence
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of NURS 438, the student will achieve or exceed the following learning outcomes:
Articulate the relationship between one’s personal values, beliefs and assumptions and one’s professional nursing practice;
Discuss possibilities resulting from positioning oneself to be open to new ideas;
Articulate and analyze current nursing and health care trends and issues;
Articulate and analyze societal change and resulting challenges for nursing practice;
Discuss appropriate resolution strategies for selected issues;
Demonstrate understanding of ethical and legal issues in nursing practice;
Demonstrate understanding of the major nursing organizations and their interrelated roles in regulating Canadian nursing;
Discuss the relationship between nursing education and professional nursing practice; and
Analyze nursing workplace environments for current trends and issues.
Evaluation
To receive credit for NURS 438, students must complete and submit all of the required assignments and achieve an overall composite grade of C (64 percent). All papers submitted must follow the guidelines of the current APA Publication Manual.
The assignments and weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
Activity
Weight
Media Analysis
20%
Scholarly Paper A
40%
Scholarly Paper B
40%
Total
100%
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
McDonald, C. & McIntyre, M. (2019). Realities of Canadian nursing: Professional, practice and power issues (5th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer. (eText)
Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized study counterparts.