The philosophy of the Anna Maria College nursing program emanates from the faculty’s beliefs concerning nursing, client, environment, health, nursing, and teaching and learning in both the client care and nursing education settings. These beliefs are informed by and incorporate concepts from contemporary established professional nursing standards, guidelines, and competencies for baccalaureate programs.

The nursing curriculum is modelled from state and national nursing core competencies, most notably the Massachusetts Nursing Core Competencies. Integral to the curriculum are critical thinking, writing, and cultural competency. Spirituality, which fosters a religious and moral sensitivity, is a core component of compassionate nursing care and is woven throughout the curriculum as one of the five dimensions of health (spiritual dimension). Behavioral and physical sciences and liberal arts are the foundations for simple to complex problem-solving in patient care and the teaching/learning process. The curriculum incorporates a focus on advocacy in health promotion for clients and populations across the lifespan.

Faculty at Anna Maria College believe nursing is a unique profession concerned with all factors affecting clients in their environment. The function of nursing is to diagnose and treat the human response to actual or potential health problems. Nursing is concerned with the five dimensions of health; physiological, psychological, sociocultural, developmental; and, spiritual. The goal of nursing is to support the client to attain, retain, and maintain optimal wellness. We believe nursing to be dynamic and caring. Nursing is an art as well as a science that utilizes critical thinking in both independent and collaborative nursing practice. Nursing provides clients with evidence-based care through the use of the nursing process.

The client (human being) is the focus of holistic nursing care. The client may be either an individual, group or the community. Through evidence-based nursing interventions, the nurse works with clients, groups, or communities to foster optimal wellness in all dimensions of health.

Faculty conceptualize health as a continuum of wellness to illness. It is a dynamic, ever changing state determined by the degree of harmonious, balanced interaction among all dimensions of health. Health is not a perfect state, but the best possible health state for a client. When client dimension of health needs are met, a state of optimal wellness exists; conversely, unmet needs reduce the wellness state.

The environment is composed of all internal and external factors affecting or affected by the client. The environment is considered to be any setting in which nurse/client interactions take place. All internal and external factors impact each client dimension of health thereby affecting the client’s level of wellness and ability to achieve health care outcomes.

Faculty believe the teaching/learning process is dynamic and interactive and requires the active participation of the student. It occurs within the College as a whole and is a systematic approach to the acquisition of knowledge. A positive learning environment is created and endorsed by mutually respectful human behaviors within the College community: This facilitates the development of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills which enable the acquisition of a knowledge base for safe nursing practice. Cultural diversity is celebrated throughout the nursing curriculum. Nursing education supports the notion of lifelong learning which promotes the participation in professional nursing organizations.

The role of the nursing faculty is to facilitate learning, model professional behavior, and guide and support nursing students. Nursing faculty support the notion of active and passive learning activities in the process of students achieving program outcomes. Inherent in this commitment is a focus on the development of critical thinking skills, which is viewed as a process of the application of mental skills that renders logical shape to the gathered data. This type of thinking occurs within the context of intellectual curiosity, rational inquiry, problem-solving, and creativity in problem framing. This skill is directly applied in the nursing process.

Nurse educators choose diverse teaching strategies that facilitate the assimilation and integration of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for safe and effective nursing practice.