Second year nursing students putting up posters on drug awareness in the Point area. W ith the initiation of the RDP and focus on primary health care, the Department of Nursing at the University of Natal launched a new problem-based, community orientated curriculum at the beginning of 1994. This is a four year, fulltime undergraduate degree majoring in Nursing. Students need to have a minimum of 30 matric points to qualify for entry.
Students do foundational courses in their first year.
Students who do not have a home language from the Nguni group should take Zulu. In the second year students do one second year level social science from those that they did in their first year, physiology for nurses and introduction to primary health care. They also do clinical work in the community in vacation times. There are three clinical sites that the Department uses, Point in Durban, Austerville, a residential suburb, and the Valley of a Thousand Hills near Hillcrest. The third year takes the students into the hospital situation.