How Each Piece of the PN Program Helps Develop Your Skills

Nursing school is unlike any other career path and tends to be intimidating to people who are used to learning everything via lecture. However, when you are learning how to care for patients and have to have a firm understanding of the evidence that guides your care, there is no single best way to learn. Rather, nursing school is a comprehensive, holistic learning experience, and each piece is critical to your development as a nurse. In today’s post, we’ll review a few ways information will be presented in your practical nursing program at Verve College, and how each delivery system develops you as a nurse.

Didactic Theory

Practical nursing programs begin with the foundational nursing theory presented in textbooks and peer-reviewed journal articles, which on their own, can be intimidating and overwhelming. Classroom presentations and lectures serve to help clarify information and make the important parts more digestible and retainable. Didactic theory is the why in nursing education and develops your nursing knowledge by offering evidence-based background information for the treatments you’ll implement.

Hands-On Skills Training

You’ll spend the majority of your practical nursing training performing hands-on skills. The time you spend doing the skills should come as no surprise, as practice makes perfect. The point of practicing the hands-on skills over and over in a controlled environment is to develop muscle memory that will allow you to successfully implement the skills in a stressful situation or on less-than-healthy patients. Try, try again! On mannequins or classmates in the classroom, you can make mistakes without repercussions. Hands-on skills in live environments with preceptor or instructor coaching allow you to perfect your technique. Keep in mind that one day you’ll be expected to perform all the skills alone, so always take the opportunity to practice when you can!

Evaluation

Tests may be the bane of your academic existence, and while we don’t disagree that they are our least favorite part of delivering practical nursing education, they are necessary. Written exams, hands-on skills evaluations, and projects are all a way to assess your development on a measurable and consistent scale. The evaluations at Verve College prepare students to sit for state nursing board exams with confidence.

Clinical Rotations

Clinical rotations are where you will put all the information you learn together and implement them in a live setting. In some clinical settings, you may hang back and observe, while in others, you’ll get your hands in on the action! In clinical rotations as a student nurse, you’ll gain valuable exposure to the pace of nursing practice and you’ll get to interact with members of the interdisciplinary care team, patients, and their families, for a fully submersive experience. Clinical rotations on various hospital floors and nursing settings allow you to get a feel for where you belong and expose you to real-life challenges in the profession.

At Verve College, we use a variety of teaching methods to help our students absorb the information and become successful practical nurses. To learn more about what our practical nursing program includes, visit us online or stop by our Oak Brook or Chicago campus today!