The
philosophy of the college reflects
the beliefs of the faculty. Additionally,
the college's
philosophy incorporates the board of trustees'
beliefs and values related to education.
As evidenced in the college of Nursing's philosophy, the
college is committed to providing a caring environment which is open
to the diversity reflected in Colorado Springs and Southern Colorado.
The
faculty at Beth-El College of Nursing acknowledges the transpersonal
healing experience as the most desirable outcome of nursing care.
The transpersonal healing experience occurs when the
professional nurse and another exchange energy, feeling, and thought
in such a way that the individual has a sense of greater harmony,
peace, health and capacity for self healing.
Though the meaning of the experience is interpreted by the
participants, both the nurse and the individual have the subjective
sense that they have experienced a profound change.
The nurse and the individual bring to every potential healing
experience the sum of their individual knowledge and experience which
influences the outcome of care. Individuals
may be thought of as having a core of experience which influences and
is influenced by their patterns of knowing.
The nurse's patterns of knowing are filtered through the lens
of specialized knowledge derived from nursing education and practice.
Individuals
have empirical knowledge about the world in which they live, and their
own specialized areas of endeavor.
They have an ethical base formulated from the values and
beliefs they hold as true. Individuals
have esthetic knowledge that is defined depending on cultural context
and other variables. Individuals,
families, groups, and communities have personal qualities and varying
degrees of insight and understanding of these personal qualities.
The understanding of the influence of socio-political process
enables the individual to interact as a citizen.
Within individuals there is an area of unknowing that provides
the medium for the growth of new knowledge and change. This area of unknowing is a place of questioning and questing
where all is possible. All
of the areas of knowing: empirical, ethical, esthetic, personal,
socio- political and the condition of unknowing interact with the
events and the context that shape the individual life journey.
A part of this life journey is the experience of health.
Within the realm of this experience, the nurse and the
individual encounter each other.
The
core of nursing is the human experience of caring, but caring from the
particular perspective of the art and science of professional nursing.
This caring core defines the content, process, context, and the
moral imperative of nursing. In
order for caring to be the content, process, context and moral
imperative for nursing, it must be forged by interaction with all the
patterns of nursing knowledge (influencing and being influenced by
each pattern).
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Through
nursing education and practice, the moral imperative of caring is
realized and the patterns of nursing knowledge are created, developed,
and integrated into the whole that is nursing art and science.
Further, nursing education provides the opportunity for people
who want to embrace this art and science to be transformed into safe,
effective, caring practitioners. Likewise,
nursing education offers opportunities for the continued growth of
professional nurses through advanced study.
The philosophy of life-long learning that the faculty at Beth-El
embraces and encourages underscores the fact that in our model nursing
is not simply a profession but a dynamic interplay of being and becoming
for the nurse.
The
nurse enters into the health experience of the individual with the
knowledge, skill, ability, and personal qualities of warmth, empathy and
congruence necessary to make the possibility of transpersonal healing a
reality. Thus, our
curriculum focuses on the development of understanding and skill in
application of each pattern of knowing especially as it relates to
caring behaviors, actions, and therapeutic nursing interventions.
Nursing education attends to the support and further development
of the qualities of warmth, empathy, and congruence requisite for the
creation of a caring context. Nursing
education provides an opportunity for the development of critical
thinking to encourage innovation and inquiry, as well as carefulness,
accuracy, and precision. Nursing education encourages students to understand and be
sensitive to contextual variables (i.e., individual perceptions of
health, cultural influence and developmental issues) because the context
of the human experience defines the health experience.
Undergraduate
education provides the entry level preparation for professional nursing
practice. Graduate
education at the master's level prepares students for advanced practice,
research, and leadership roles within the profession of nursing. The college provides programs which support the concept of
seamless articulation.
The
Master of Science program at Beth-El College of Nursing builds on the
skills of the baccalaureate prepared nurse.
The program offers the students the opportunity to expand theory,
research and skills necessary for advanced practice.
The
faculty accepts the responsibility for the selection and progression of
students and for developing, implementing, and systematically evaluating
the programs to enhance nursing education and practice. The faculty is committed to educational excellence, clinical
expertise, scholarly activity, support of a diverse student population,
professional development, and community service. Faculty and students
share responsibility for the implementation of this philosophy of
nursing.