One of the suggested topics for the first week journal is to describe perceptions and possible revisions about curriculum development. I currently teach in an undergraduate nursing program at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The nursing department is considering revising their undergraduate nursing program, and I would like to take an active role to assist the faculty to accomplish this task. Currently, our curriculum is based on developmental theory and nursing courses are taught from “womb to tomb”. For example, OB/PEDS are taught in the spring semester of the sophomore year and geriatrics is taught in the senior year.
This seems like a logical method for teaching nursing curriculum; however, there is much debate among the faculty whether this is the best curriculum for our undergraduate program. Personally, I feel this is a rational method, but I may change my opinion after taking this class. Some of the faculty members feel that med-surg should be taught in the spring semester of the sophomore year and OB/PEDS in the fall semester of the junior year. The rationale for this curriculum change is because the students need the med-surg content to serve as a foundation for the specialties courses (e.g., OB/PEDS, psychiatric nursing, etc.). I have posted online surveys on WEB CT for the sophomore students regarding the possibility of making this curriculum change, and the student response is split (e.g., 50% desire OB/PEDS and 50% desire med-surg in the spring semester of the sophomore year).
I have two personal learning objectives for this course. First, I would like to analyze our undergraduate nursing curriculum and see if it needs to be changed. Second, if the curriculum needs to be changed, I would like to explore a variety of nursing theories and philosophy that could serve as a theoretical framework for redesigning our undergraduate curriculum.
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I think the womb-to-tomb curricular structure would be hard to implement well. Med-Surg nursing is the bread and butter of pre-licensure nursing programs - it's what NCLEX wants a lot of, it's what employers want graduates to know, and it's where the most broadly applicable and transferable concepts are learned. Pediatric and OB content that is tested on the NCLEX are all fairly basic in nature and tend to be based upon med-surg applications to these special populations.
Ideally, you should try to teach horizontal concepts in a very basic form as early as possible and then continue to reinforce and develop them across the curriculum as the program goes forward. There are some things that you can do this with starting in peds, but others that I imagine being difficult to incorporate. If you teach pediatrics first, you'll need to find a way to introduce all of these concepts in that course.
All that said, I've never tried to develop a program in a womb-to-tomb manor. Perhaps it's easier than I imagine. It's certainly worth considering, though. Perhaps you can develop a program in this course in that fashion and see if the end result looks as if it might fly.
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