RN-BS Nursing Program (Professional Studies)
Program Director:
Debra Cherubini, Ph.D., RN
(401) 341-3251
Salve's bachelor's degree in nursing is designed for licensed registered nurses who graduated from an accredited program awarding an associate degree or a diploma in nursing with a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.7. Upon completion of the program, students are prepared to continue their education for a master's degree or doctorate in nursing. All courses are conveniently offered in an online format. Financial aid is available.
- Opportunities for professional development within a holistic model of education
- Online interactive courses
- Preparation to address future health needs of various populations
Mission of the Department of Nursing
The Salve Regina University Department of Nursing supports the University’s mission with a focus on the critical concerns of the Sisters of Mercy. The Department of Nursing seeks to create a supportive learning community for students from all backgrounds and beliefs. The Department of Nursing endeavors to develop professional nurses who are liberally educated, ethically grounded, clinically competent providers of health care committed to human service and social justice regardless of the race, ethnicity or religion of the population served. Committed to patient-centered care, graduates will recognize and include the patient or their designee as a full partner on the health care team. It is expected that graduates will become lifelong learners, continuing to develop as health care providers and members of the global health partnership crafting the role of the nurse of the future.
Accreditation
The University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) accredits the Nursing Program, which is also approved by the Rhode Island Board of Nursing Registration and Nursing Education. Officially recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education as a national accreditation agency, CCNE is an autonomous accrediting agency, contributing to the improvement of the public's health. CCNE ensures the quality and integrity of baccalaureate, graduate, and residency programs in nursing. The University is a member of major organizations concerned with the advancement of higher education, including the American Council on Education, the College Entrance Examination Board, the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, and the National Catholic Educational Association.
Admission Requirements
Applicants to the RN-BSN Program must have received an RN license in nursing. A minimum grade point average of 2.70 is required. All qualified students are eligible for admission to Salve Regina University regardless of race, color, age, sex, disability, religion or national origin.
RN to BSN Student Learning Outcomes
At the completion of the program, students will be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge for safe and effective nursing practice with the ability to use clinical judgement, critical thinking, evidence-based practice, as well as the knowledge from other disciplines including the arts and sciences.
- Provide person-centered care by including family and/or important others, fostering a holistic, individualized, just, respectful, compassionate, and developmentally appropriate approach to patient care.
- Explores the health care delivery continuum, from health promotion and policy to disease management of populations, responding to the needs of an ever-evolving world for the improvement of equitable health outcomes.
- Critically appraises nursing knowledge and information management systems to synthesize, translate, apply, and disseminate information to promote best nursing practice and scholarly inquiry.
- Employs established and emerging principles of quality and safety as core values of nursing practice to improve patient outcomes and minimize risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.
- Recognizes the need and engages in interprofessional partnerships though intentional collaboration across professions to optimize care, foster inclusion, enhance the healthcare experience, and strengthen outcomes.
- Describes various healthcare delivery environments in which nursing effectively and proactively coordinates resources to provide safe and equitable quality care to diverse populations supportive of the Critical Concerns of Mercy.
- Develops resilience by coming to know themselves through examination of their personal and professional ethics, talents, limitations, relationships, and goals while building skills needed to foster connections with those around them.
(Source: 2022 Assessment Report)
ENG-216A: Literature and Medicine (3 Credits)
This course highlights story-telling as a common element between literature and medicine. Students examine how illness relates to identity. Readings provide cross-cultural perspectives on healing and well-being. In addition to formal writing skills, students reflect on their professional and personal goals.
Fulfills Core Requirement in Literature and Media.
Theme: Engaging Creative, Aesthetic and Spiritual Experience.
HIS-313A: American Immigrant Experience (3 Credits)
An examination of the experiences of the major immigrant groups from the Puritans to the Third World peoples of the present day. Special emphasis is placed on the European immigrant waves of the nineteenth century and on the experiences of African Americans before and after Emancipation. The course considers each group's efforts to adapt to America and the ambivalent and sometimes hostile reaction that they received from native-born Americans.
Fulfills Core Requirement in History.
Theme: Defining the American Experience.
PHL-125A: Philosophy of the Human Person (3 Credits)
This course examines the philosophical literature on the question, what it means to be a human person. Topics such as the material and spiritual dimensions of the human person, the immortality of the soul, ethics and human dignity, and individuality and inter-subjectivity or community will be considered.
Fulfills Core Requirement in Philosophy.
Theme: Creative, Aesthetic, Spiritual Experience.
PHL-225A: Quest for the Good Life (3 Credits)
This course engages the philosophical and ethical literature seeking answers to the question: What makes a life good? We shall explore the roles of reason and faith in the search for the good life and probe subjects such as: happiness, wisdom, justice, and other virtues through study of the great works of philosophers, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, and Mill. In their company, we will have the opportunity to examine our lives and what makes for a life truly worth living.
RTS-225A: The Quest for the Ultimate: Dialogue with Global Religious Traditions (3 Credits)
The Catholic tradition places high value on thinking seriously about spiritual matters. It also places high value on thinking together, rather than alone. In this exciting yet dangerous time of global pluralism, religious traditions are very much in dialogue, thinking together about ultimate questions and how they impact peoples' lives. In this class, students will bring their own spiritual perspectives into dialogue with the great religions of the world, and in keeping with the Mercy tradition, consider how religious vision impacts concrete human needs.
Fulfills Core Requirement Faith and Reason.
RTS-337A: Biomedical Ethics (3 Credits)
Pre-requisite(s): RTS-225 is required.
Recent advances in medical and biotechnology have allowed humans in wealthy countries like the United States to address many problems that just a few decades ago would have been inconceivable to overcome. These advances enable us to improve the quality of our lives, overcome obstacles to procreation, replace organs, and extend our life on Earth. At the same time, they have raised many questions, particularly of an ethical nature: What is the nature of illness and health? What is necessary for a high-quality human life? What ethical values should be honored in the patient-physician relationship? Can lives be extended too long? Should life ever be terminated, and if so, under what conditions? What methods of human reproduction are legitimate and which raise moral concerns? Do medical and biotechnologies threaten to reduce some humans to mere tools for other humans? Who receives the benefits of new medical and biotechnology, who is excluded, and on what basis? Does every individual have a right to health care? These questions, in turn, sink their roots into even deeper questions. What is human nature and when do we violate it? How do moral and spiritual values relate to biological and physical values? How do religious worldviews, and in particular Christianity, understand illness and health, life and death? The goal of this course is to enable students to reflect on these and similar questions in an interdisciplinary manner.
Fulfills Core Requirement in Religious and Theological Studies.
Theme: What is Western Heritage?-Ancient and Modern.
SOA-249A: Global Health (3 Credits)
This course is designed to explore and analyze the social contexts of health, illness, and the body. We will investigate how anthropologists and sociologists approach health and disease from a bio-cultural understanding. For instance, how do sociocultural systems shape perceptions of the body, disease patterns and notions of healing? How do healing systems vary across cultures? How are infectious diseases shaped by political and economic factors? Analysis of how Western medical sciences influence our understanding of the body will also be studied.
Fulfills Core Requirement in Social Sciences.
Theme: Building Global Awareness.
STA-173A: Statistical Methods (3 Credits)
This course will address a broad spectrum of fundamental statistics concepts. The topics include exploratory data analysis, basic probability distributions, sampling distributions, interval estimations, hypothesis testing, and significance testing (P-Values) with single, paired and two-sample problems.
THE-261A: Public Speaking (3 Credits)
Core Complement Course in Visual and Performing Arts. Using the close connection between writing and speaking, this course provides an introduction to informative and persuasive speaking. After completing a series of short presentations, students create, research, and organize longer talks and learn how to enhance presentations with multimedia visuals. 3 credits.
UNV-102A: University Seminar II (3 Credits)
University Seminar II challenges students to deepen the connection between writing and thinking, equip them with the necessary skills to effectively develop ideas and argument through academic writing, and prepares them for a variety of writing that they will encounter throughout the course of their studies at Salve Regina. Students choose from a wide range of topics for this writing intensive course.
NUR-148A: Transitioning into Professional Nursing (3 Credits)
This course builds on the registered nurse's desire for a baccalaureate in nursing by explaining the mission and philosophy of Salve Regina University and the Department of Nursing, the development of the discipline of nursing, and the expectations of the nurse of the future. Topics include nursing history, nursing theories and models of practice, the various settings of practice and the roles of the professional nurse, the social policy statement of the profession, the scope and standards of nursing practice, and the responsibility of the nurse to advocate for both the patients and the profession. Students will be given assignments that develop skills in the use of library information systems and information technology, professional writing in APA format, and public speaking/ presentation skills for professional nurses. (Open to Degree Completion students only).
NUR-216A: Healthcare Informatics (3 Credits)
This course establishes the foundational knowledge for understanding and practicing nursing informatics in health care settings. It will explore the impact on patient care within the contemporary health care environment and examine a variety of interactive strategies and technologies used to enhance health care delivery to consumers. Core and supporting models and theories for nursing informatics and the sciences that support nursing informatics are studies. Consideration is given to the use of information technology to support decisions that promote safety and quality in patient-centered care, and concerns about protecting information and system integrity are addressed.
NUR-335A: Holistic Health Assessment (3 Credits)
Pre-requisite(s): NUR-216A is required.
This course focuses on the knowledge, procedures and skills required to perform and document a holistic health assessment, diagnosis and plan of patients from across the lifespan and in various settings. Techniques for assessment of the physical, spiritual, psychological and socio-cultural aspects of a patient are presented with special considerations of unique populations and age groups. Assessment skills may be performed in both the nursing lab and in community settings. The use of the nursing process to assess, determine nursing diagnoses, plan, develop interventions and evaluative procedures for health and wellness promotion, illness prevention, and risk anticipation, and the utilization of referral to colleagues will be included. The systematic approach to documentation will be included in the process.
NUR-336A: Research & Evidence-Based Practice (3 Credits)
Pre-requisite(s): STA-173A is required.
This course focuses on the role of the professional nurse as an informed consumer of research and other evidence to facilitate care of individuals, families, groups, and communities. Emphasis is placed on the introduction to the values, characteristics, and process of quantitative and qualitative research. The student examines the research process and develops the beginning skills of analysis and critique of nursing research. Emphasis is placed on the development of clinical reasoning by analyzing published studies related to the delivery of nursing care. The professional responsibility to apply findings to direct patient care and develop best practices in nursing care is presented.
NUR-436A: Aging and End-Of-Life Care (3 Credits)
Pre-requisite(s): Completion of all 300-level nursing courses is required.
Co-requisite(s): NUR-437A is required.
This course presents the knowledge and skills necessary to provide holistic nursing care of families challenged by the loss of abilities of family members due to aging and the need for end-of-life care, with special attention to issues of quality of life of the patient and family members. Emphasis will be placed on assessment of function, physical, cognitive, psychological, and social changes common in old age, and the complex symptomatology, pain management, and risk factors associated with decline in health status. Attitudes and values that affect care to the aged and the dying process will be explored. Content related to end of life issues for the elderly, including communication, evidence-based practice, cultural expectations, spiritual and religious values, and planning advanced directives will be explored.
NUR-437A: Experiential Learning: Aging and End-Of-Life Care (3 Credits)
Pre/Co-requisite(s): NUR-436A is required.
This course presents students with the opportunity to provide appropriate, safe, holistic nursing care to families with aged members and patients who are approaching the end-of-life, while also minimizing the potential for the occurrence of additional health challenges for patients and their family. Collaboration with the patient will provide the basis for appropriate patient-centered, ethical, cost-effective nursing care to aged individuals, dying patients and their families in a variety of settings. Appropriate therapeutic responses will be based on the patient's perception of health and understanding of risk factors, critical analysis of clinical findings, clinical research, evidence-based practice, clinical reasoning skills, methods of patient advocacy and teaching, issues of patient safety, processes for documentation and communication, and the nursing roles within a multi-professional team.
NUR-444A: Public Health and Disaster Response Planning (3 Credits)
Pre-requisite(s): Completion of all 300-level nursing courses is required.
Co-requisite(s): NUR-445A is required.
This course introduces the student to public health nursing. Epidemiological principles will be utilized in discussing global health issues, environmental health, infectious disease, and health disparities within populations. Concepts of vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters, and the challenges of prevention and health care advocacy for the preparedness of all will be explored within the context of social justice. Community disaster preparation and management will be explored. Local, regional and national preparedness will be evaluated with an emphasis on the effect on the local community. This course may include fieldwork on a public health issue.
NUR-445A: Experiential Learning: PH and Disaster Preparedness (3 Credits)
Co-requisite(s): NUR-444A is required.
This course introduces the student to public health nursing. Epidemiological principles will be utilized in discussing global health issues, environmental health, infectious disease, and health disparities within populations. Concepts of vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters, and the challenges of prevention; and health care advocacy for the preparedness of all will be explored within the context of social justice. Community disaster preparation and management will be investigated. Local, regional and national preparedness will be evaluated with an emphasis on the effect of the local community. Collaboration with the patient and our community partners will provide the basis for appropriate patient-centered, ethical, cost-effective nursing care to vulnerable populations in a variety of settings. Appropriate therapeutic responses will be based on the patient's perception of health and understanding of risk factors, critical analysis of clinical findings, clinical research, evidence-based practice, clinical reasoning skills, methods of patient advocacy and teaching, issues of patient safety, processes for documentation and communication, and the nursing roles within a multi-professional team.
NUR-446A: Leadership and Management (3 Credits)
Pre-requisite(s): Completion of all 300-level nursing courses is required.
This course presents concepts of organizational and systems leadership, quality improvement, risk management and patient safety that promote high quality patient care within institutional and community arenas. Principles of leadership and management are discussed with emphasis on the mission and vision of an organization, models of care delivery, and communication across the continuum of care. After analyzing trends and issues in the current health care system, students will determine ways they can provide the leadership required to affect a positive change within the evolving environment of health care. This course may include fieldwork.
NUR-452A: Nursing Capstone (3 Credits)
This course is intended to provide a capstone to your studies at Salve Regina, integrating what you have learned in the core curriculum and in your major. The course will reinforce skills that are crucial for professional achievement and life-long learning, including any or all of the following: research, information literacy, creative activity, and experiential learning. Students will write a detailed analysis of a nursing care issue which will include a literature review, proposed solutions to the concern or issue and implications for practice.