Professional Attitudes, Values, Knowledge and Conduct for Graduate Nurses

Aims:

This module aims to provide the student with a foundation to enable the development of appropriate professional attitudes, values, knowledge, skills and conduct to be a graduate nurse.

On completion of this module, the successful student will be able to:

1. Discuss the nature of professional practice and conduct with reference to key legal frameworks and ethical principles
2. Describe the theory underpinning principles of effective leadership
3. Explain the roles, responsibilities and scope of practice of nurses within the MDT and identify skills required for effective teamwork
4. Explain the influence of culture and diversity on health, its social perceptions and culturally congruent nursing care
5. Explore the concepts of emotional intelligence and resilience and their impact on professional judgement and decision making.
6. Recognise the need to use risk assessment to promote safety at work and in practice and demonstrate honesty, integrity and candour in relation to safeguarding patients

• Definition of nursing, profession, professional values, characteristics of professions. Nursing history its culture and professional socialisation / social media. Explore NMC and its role and functions, code of conduct - with professional boundaries in therapeutic relationships.
• Models of nursing leadership. Leadership theories.
• The role of a nurse, responsibilities and professionalism. Professional scope of practice and accountability. Defining Teamwork. Introduction to MDT/Inter-Professional working and understanding of other professionals’ roles, effective teams and barriers to team working. Enhancing transferable skills e.g. Communication and interpersonal relationships within teamwork, MDT and with families/public.
• Providing culturally congruent nursing care. Introduction to Laws related to health, social services and nursing, consent, confidentiality principles and good record keeping. Introduction to ethical framework and the impact on professional practice. Human Rights Act and promoting autonomy through partnership and patient/service user involvement advocacy.
• Exploring terminologies of emotional intelligence, resilience and stress. What is health and cultural perceptions of health. Introduction to health promotion, and healthy lifestyles. Promoting mental health and wellness / wellbeing.
• Exploring vulnerability in adults and children - Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, role of carers. Risk assessment and recognition of harm/abuse in vulnerable children and adults. Laws related to safeguarding and safeguarding processes in children and adults. Duty of candour and escalating concerns.

Our pedagogical approach (or signature pedagogy) is to offer a range of teaching and learning experiences to enable both surface learning when applicable (concrete skills, tasks) moving towards deeper learning (reflection, analysis knowledge and research informing practice). They are also designed to ensure that learners completing their programme are prepared for practice moving towards an increasing independent self-assessing learning approach.

The learning and teaching strategy for this module has been designed with collaborative learning as its premise and therefore all fields of nursing will be integrated and arranged into seminar groups. The module will be delivered over full days on Monday (Yellow stream) and Wednesday (Green stream)

The module consists of blended learning that recognises differing learning styles and needs of students. A variety of level 4 learning resources that include podcasts, narrated power-point presentations, subject specific professionals videos, Service User videos / web links, evidence-based learning frameworks and licensed survey tools will be timetabled for students to access with clear learning activity guidance and signposting for both pre and post seminar sessions.

Exploration and discussion of case studies and identified on line learning activities will be facilitated during seminar sessions and workshops to achieve deeper learning of the core principles and foundations of professional nursing practice as set out in learning outcomes 1-6.

Throughout the module students will have timetabled Library IT sessions and assessment tutorial / workshops to form part of the summative assignment guidance and support.

(a) Formative assessment scheme

Creation of a poster using guidelines outlined on module page.

(b) Summative assessment scheme

Creation of the online poster – communicating the image of nursing according to the field of practice being studied.

Statement :

• The teaching, learning, assessment and research activities undertaken in this module have been considered and are not likely to require ethical approval.
• However, please seek advice if undertaking the module entails carrying out any research activities involving human participants, human data, animals/animal products, precious artefacts, materials or data systems. If you submit work that includes data gathered from or about people, this may be treated as academic misconduct and could lead to fail grade being awarded.
• Research ethics approval seeks to ensure all research is designed and undertaken according to certain principles of ethical research. These include:

1. Primary concern must be given to the safety, welfare and dignityof participants, researchers, colleagues, the environment and the wider community
2. Consideration of risksshould be undertaken before research commences with the aim of minimising risks to those involved – i.e. human participants or animal subjects, colleagues, the environment and the wider community, as well as actual or potential risks to those directly or indirectly affected by the research.
3. Informed consentshould be freely given by participants, and by a trained person when collecting or analysing human tissue (details on accessing and completing online training for gaining informed consent for HTA purposes can be found below in Section 8).
4. Respect for the privacy, confidentiality and anonymityof participants
5. Consideration of the rights of people who may be vulnerable(by virtue of perceived or actual differences in their social status, ethnic origin, gender, mental capacities, or other such characteristics) who may be less competent or able to refuse to give consent to participate
6. Researchers have a responsibility to the general public and to their profession; as such they should balance the anticipated benefits of their research against potential harm, misuse or abusewhich must be avoided
7. Researchers must demonstrate the highest standards of ethical conduct and research integrity. They must work within the limits of their skills, training and experience, and refrain from exploitation, dishonesty, plagiarism, infringement of intellectual property rights and the fabrication of research results. They should declare any actual or potential conflicts of interest, and where necessary take steps to resolve them.
8. When using human tissues for research,?Human Tissue Act and Human Tissue Authority (HTA) requirements?must be met.?Please?contact the relevant designated person (DP) in your department or the HTA Designated Individual (DI) (Dr Lucy Ghali - [email protected]). Further information is provided below in?the?section: "Human Tissue Authority Information", see 'Governance?Structure" document and SOPs etc.?
9. Research should not involve any illegal activity, and researchers must comply with all relevant laws.

• For more information about ethics go to the Middlesex Online Research Ethics (MORE) system which has information and guidance to help you meet the highest standards of ethical research using this link: https://MOREform.mdx.ac.uk
• Information and further guidance on how to complete a research ethics application form (e.g., video guides and templates) can be found on the MORE MyLearning site*: http://mdx.mrooms.net/enrol/index.php?id=12277 (Log in required)

*Middlesex University Definition of Research document can be located on this site. 

Formative assessment: Formative assessment is completed during your year of study and provides the opportunity to evaluate your progress with your learning.  Classroom assessment is one of the most common formative assessment techniques although other activities and tasks may be used. Formative assessments help show you and us that you are learning and understanding the material covered in this course and allow us to monitor your progress towards achieving the learning outcomes for module. Although formative assessments do not directly contribute to the overall module mark they do provide an important opportunity to receive feedback on your learning.  

Summative assessment: Summative assessment is used to check the level of learning at the end of the course. It is summative because it is based on accumulated learning during the course. The point is to ensure that students have met the learning outcomes for the course and are at the appropriate level. It is the summative assessment that determines the grade that you are awarded for the module.