Nursing is an art and a science. The discipline of nursing is concerned with individual, family, and community and their responses to health within the context of the changing health care environment. Professional nursing includes the appraisal and the enhancement of health. Personal meanings of health are understood in the nursing situation within the context of familial, societal and cultural meanings. The professional nurse uses knowledge from theories and research in nursing and other disciplines in providing nursing care The role of the nurse involves the exercise of social, cultural and political responsibilities, including accountability for professional actions, provision of quality nursing care and community involvement.
Education is an individualized, life-long process.
Learning includes the individual's interrelations with the environment, knowledge and skill acquisition, development of critical thinking, and self awareness. Self-expression enables the student to respond to clients who have unique human values and cultural heritage. Each nursing student brings attitudes, beliefs, values, feelings, knowledge and experience into the learning environment. These variables influence learning that occurs through continual construction and reconstruction of experiences in relation to environmental influences. Nursing education at the baccalaureate level synthesizes knowledge from nursing, humanities, social, cultural, physical, and natural sciences to operationalize clinical decision making.