School of Nursing Philosophy SON faculty subscribe to the mission, purposes and tenets of Florida International University. The SON advances the University's mission by preparing qualified men and women as beginning nurse generalists who can function in a variety of roles in diverse health care settings. The School further advances the University's mission by preparing qualified professional nurses for advanced nursing roles. Advanced practice nurses collaborate with clients and other health care professionals in various settings to provide specialized, competent, theoretical and research-based practice. The School's mission is predicated on the faculty's beliefs regarding humans, health, environment, and nursing.
Humans are open systems who interact, interrelate, and are interdependent with the environment.
Throughout the life span, humans strive to achieve optimal well being though an interactive process between internal and external environments utilizing adaptation. Adaptation is a response to stressors that impact humans' physiological, psychosocial, developmental, cultural and spiritual dimensions. Health is characterized by an integrated physiological, psychosocial, developmental, cultural and spiritual functioning resulting in optimal use of resources to minimize health alterations. A human being's health at any given point in time is viewed as a point on the health-illness continuum represented by optimal well being at one end and death at the opposite end. Interchange occurs between humans' environmental systems.