Caring is a basic core value of nursing education as well as nursing practice. Nurses provide a caring presence which creates a healing environment for the individual, family, and community throughout the life span. A caring attitude is exemplified by respectful, sensitive, and empathetic interactions between the nurse, the individual, and the interdisciplinary team.

Effective communication is one way of demonstrating caring. To facilitate
patient care and achieve positive client outcomes, therapeutic relationships must be established between the individual, the family, and the interdisciplinary team. Further, communication is an interactive process which includes verbal (spoken and written words), and nonverbal modes as well as information technology.

Caring and effective communication are fostered through professionalism,
which is highly regarded as an integral component of the education process. Professional behaviors are continually stressed and integrated throughout the program to instill standards of professional practice. Students are held accountable for their actions and behaviors in relation to legal, ethical, and regulatory frameworks. Professional growth is encouraged through an emphasis on evidence-based practice, and a push toward continual education.

The program prepares the graduate to meet the accepted entry roles of the nurse (Educational, 1990, pp. 3-12) through mastery of the core competencies as published by the National League for Nursing for Associate Degree Nursing programs (Educational, 1990, p. 4) and reaffirmed in the 2000 report by NLN (Educational, 2000, p. 5). These competencies describe behaviors which demonstrate that the graduate has acquired the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes inherent in the three roles basic to associate degree nursing practice: provider of care, manager of care, and member within the discipline.

Because every patient/client has a right to care given by a safe practitioner,
safety is the essential component of all nursing practice which overrides all others. The practitioner should make clinical and managerial decisions to ensure accurate and safe care. Therefore, student clinical performance is based on an over-riding competency for safety that delineates critical behaviors essential to the safe, effective care of patients/clients. This competency is contained within the student handbook and each course syllabus.

Teaching and learning is the cultivation of knowledge and skills through
instruction and study. Students are taught to make appropriate patient/client care decisions based on assessment and planning, credible evidence, critical thinking, and clinical reasoning. This process of teaching/learning is accomplished by presenting the student with increasingly difficult challenges as his or her ability to meet them develops. Course content, thus, moves from simple to complex and incorporates broad to specific concepts.

Education is viewed as a continuous process that provides opportunities for the individual to demonstrate learning as a modification of behavior through appropriate interaction with the environment. The learner is important and unique and is encouraged to actively participate in the learning process through structured activities that motivate the learner to utilize his or her abilities, experiences, and attitudes to become a safe, effective nurse.

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