Nursing

Nursing Program

Vision

The vision of NMSUA’s Nursing Program is to educate students of diverse backgrounds through excellence in nursing education and practice to become professional registered nurses.  Their contribution will be demonstrated thorough knowledge and skills essential for practice in a demanding and complex profession in the communities they serve.  The NMSUA Nursing faculty places their highest priority on student learning and delivering comprehensive support for student success.  The Nursing faculty dedicates themselves to excellence in academics, student support, and community service.

 The Nursing Curriculum at NMSUA provides educational preparation leading to the Associate Degree in Nursing.  Upon completion of the Associate Degree in Nursing, the graduate is eligible to take the National Council Licensing Examination (NCLEX) for licensure as a Registered Nurse.  Students planning to continue towards a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing may then apply to a RN–BSN Program; such as offered at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Mission

Consistent with the mission of New Mexico State University Alamogordo, the faculty of the nursing program accepts the primary responsibility for the preparation of nursing students from diverse and multicultural backgrounds.  This charge is undertaken in an environment that promotes challenging experiences, personal satisfaction, and life-long learning.  The practice of nursing is an integration (of the concepts) of caring, holistic approach to health, and wellness, in conjunction with a high level of specialized knowledge taken from the sciences and humanities, to assist the client to achieve an optimal level of wellness. The client must be viewed as an individual, unique and deserving dignity and respect, and as a member of a family, community, and a culturally diverse society.   The client is the sum total of a variety of factors (nutrition, culture, self-responsibility, physical wellness, environmental influences, spiritual, and psychological make-up, past experiences, etc.).  To treat one factor in the absence of the others is to neglect the person as a whole.

 The Mission Statement of the Nursing Program: To provide a quality evidenced-based and realistic education and learning opportunity with the practice of Nursing for individuals in the diverse communities we serve. The mission provides quality educational and learning opportunities for the practice of nursing as a means of providing health care.  The program endeavors to provide an evidence-based and realistic educational environment that is sensitive to ethical and cultural needs.  Each student maintains an open mind, a capacity for self-development, and a focus on lifelong learning and professionalism.  The program provides service to the community through exploration of its educational needs.  The program prepares students of diverse backgrounds to productively contribute to their profession and society.

 Men and women, as Nursing Students, have clinical experiences with individuals, families, groups, and the community to provide a variety of health-care services such as medical-surgical nursing, emergency-critical care nursing, geriatric nursing, school health, community and home health, psychiatric-mental health nursing, maternal-child nursing, research, education, and administration and management.

Core Values

The core values of the Nursing Program that mirror the principle core values of  NMSUA and National League for Nursing (2010) include the following: Excellence, Intergrity, Innovation, Caring, Diversity, Ethics, Holism, Patient-Centeredness.

Philosophy

The Nursing Program’s philosophy aligns with NMSUA’s Core Values as follows:

• We value excellence in education as a lifelong opportunity to increase productivity, expand visions, and encourage enjoyment of learning.
•  We value integrity in education through responsible teaching and honest interaction with students, colleagues, and community in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
•  We value innovation as it applies to meeting the individual and changing needs of students, faculty, staff, and community (NMSUA website).

 The Nursing Faculty believes that all individuals have basic health needs that are constantly changing in relation to internal and external stressors.  The individual’s responses to the stressor are influenced by perception, conditioning factors, and coping mechanisms, which moves them toward adaptation and wellness or maladaptation and illness.  We believe wellness is based on an integration of body, mind, and spirit (Holism). 

Our philosophical beliefs regarding nursing, nursing education, teaching/learning, core competencies, and the role of the Associate Degree Nurse as prepared by New Mexico State University Alamogordo are as follows:

 1.    Nursing: Nursing is a caring profession whose members provide health care to diverse individuals across the life span in diverse care settings.  With a broad knowledge base, Nursing is both an art and a science, combining the art of caring with the science of Nursing…..(see page 3 – Nursing Student Handbook) 

 2.  Nursing Education: Nursing education is a continuous, lifelong process that results in observable and measurable changes in knowledge, skills and attitudes. Learning occurs best when the learner is self-directed, an active participant in the learning process, and accountable for personal behavior and performances…..(see page 4 – Nursing Student Handbook)  

3.  Teaching/Learning: The NMSUA Nursing Faculty and Clinical Instructors are committed to the concept that the Nursing student must be actively involved in the learning process.  In order for learning to occur, the student must be open to new experiences and be willing to undergo the process of change…..(see page 4 – Nursing Student Handbook)