RUNNING HEAD: Foundational Concepts Course Summary 1

Foundational Concepts Course Summary

Megan Murphy
Aultman College
Kathy Hendrickson MSN, RN, CNE
Foundational Concepts Course Summary 2

In this course, Foundational Concepts, we covered what basic care for patients should

look like and what their normal functions of all the body systems should be. This course focuses

on identifying basic nursing skills needed for patient care.

Within this course there was an assignment called “Teaching/Learning Plan” that covers

two of the course learning objectives. The first objective that is covered by this assignment is

“Recognize the importance of health teaching and health promotion across the life span.” The

demographic for this assignment was Amish infants and the education needed on the

recommended childhood vaccination schedule. Through my research for this assignment, I

discovered what the importance of health teaching and health promotion throughout different age

groups and cultures. The other course learning objective that this assignment covers is “Identify

patient education strategies used to formulate health promotion teaching plans across the

lifespan.” My target group had unique barriers to learning and accepting the health information

that was being presented to them. This means the teaching plan and its strategies needed to be

carefully picked out and executed. Gaining the understanding and acceptance of the Amish

community is a key part of the health promotion and disease prevention teaching presentation.

The clinical reflection paper I submitted for this course highlights several of the course

learning objectives. The weekly concept for this clinical journal was patient education. I

educated the patient on the proper use of an incentive spirometer. Course learning objectives met

by this topic are: “Recognize the importance of health teaching and health promotion across the

life span,” “Describe the relationship between perfusion, gas exchange, and thermoregulation

and their affect upon vital signs at the beginning level of nursing care,” and “Identify patient

education strategies used to formulate health promotion teaching plans across the lifespan.”
Foundational Concepts Course Summary 3

I also spoke about the help I had from the patient care technician with the bed, bath, and

catheter care. Having the help from the patient care technician with the patient I had that week

was extremely helpful as the patient needed to have assistance due to the extent of their

postoperative pain and surgical sites. Collaborating with members of the interdisciplinary team

came with great benefit to the patient care and the quality of it. “Identifying basic nursing skills

used in promotion of optimal ambulation and other activities of daily living”, “Understand the

role of the nurse in the interdisciplinary team to improve patient outcomes”, “Describe the

relationship between provision of safe patient care based on the QSEN competencies and health

care quality”, and “Utilize the nursing process in collaboration with the interdisciplinary team to

develop individualized patient plans of care”, these are all of the course learning objectives that

relate to the experience of the patient care technician and I (nursing student) working together to

provide safe and quality care as an interdisciplinary team.

This course has taught the basics of patient care. Learning how to provide patient care

that follows the QSEN competencies for safe and quality care was followed throughout the

course teachings.