The third session covers recovery and adaptation to cardiovascular disease. Lectures cover the psychosocial aspects of cardiac disease, cardiac rehabilitation, exercise physiology, and recovery. The clinical component of this session includes attending a cardiac rehabilitation class supervised by an exercise physiologist and registered nurse. The course faculty also hold a panel discussion with former patients and their families, who talk about their experiences. The panel enables students to hear firsthand how cardiovascular disease has affected patients and their families.
Many students comment on how rewarding it is to see how well the patients have adapted.
Each student makes a presentation to the class on the course's last day. The course faculty encourage the students to share this information with colleagues after they complete the course. Presentations have included an audio review of heart sounds, discussing the nursing considerations related to pediatric cardiac surgery, and developing an outpatient follow-up form for an office nurse to use. Other students have presented information about new technology being used in clinical practice and its implications for nursing care, including devices used in minimally invasive cardiac surgery. Students who take the course for academic credit write a paper on the impact of cardiovascular illness on patients.