Caring for the Whole Person:
The Whole Person includes the knowledge, skills, specialties, prior experiences and learned characteristics that a person has gained throughout a lifetime. These qualities express themselves in physiological, psychological, sociocultural, developmental, and spiritual dimensions. As a person interacts with both internal and external environments, these qualities develop and change over time. Effective healthcare and healthcare education recognizes, addresses, and cares for the Whole Person.
The Nursing Environment:
In the 1860’s, Florence Nightingale first recognized the effects that environment factors have on a person’s health. This environment includes all conditions, circumstances, and influences which surround a person. Just as the environment continuously affects the person, so likewise the person influences the environment. These interactions may have either positive or negative effects on the person's health and healthcare needs.
Nursing takes place in a variety of environments: home care, community care, acute care, etc., all in a world-wide setting. As nurses serve in these diverse environments, they must address each individual person’s unique care needs. To do so, a nurse must observe subtle cues, evaluate them, and take effective action.
Health:
Health is a dynamic state which lies along a continuum ranging from a condition of optimal health, through less-than-optimal health, and eventually to death. Health, which results from a person’s interactions with both internal and external environments, fluctuates during a person's lifespan. At a state of optimal wellness, a person’s basic needs are met. Less-than-optimal wellness results from unmet needs, whether physical, psychological, spiritual, developmental, or sociocultural.
Nursing:
The AMA faculty practice nursing is both an art and a science. This approach allows nurses to recognize and analyze cues to patient needs. From this awareness, a nurse can make appropriate clinical decisions and accurately evaluate outcomes.
The professional nurse develops this awareness by following a code of ethics and professional standards of practice, which the BSN curriculum addresses. In addition, this curriculum focuses on all aspects of nursing, which include 1) providing appropriate and effective care to patients; 2) designing, managing, and coordinating such care, 3) serving as active members of the profession, and 4) engaging in life-long learning. The professional nurse serves as an educator, a communicator, and an advocate. Overall, effective nurses commit themselves to advancing the best knowledge available in nursing and healthcare.
Nursing Education:
Nursing education focuses on safe, effective, culturally appropriate, and evidence-based patient care. This education teaches critical analysis, which enables nurses to recognize meaningful cues, to take appropriate actions in a variety of situations, and to evaluate the outcomes. Nursing students are self- motivated adult learners, who continuously enhance their knowledge, skills, and attitudes. AMA faculty, who serve as resources, facilitators, and mentors, collaborate with students in this discovery-based, mutually respectful environment.
Simulation and Clinical Practice Center:
American Medical Academy's Simulation and Clinical Practice Center uses technologically advanced simulation manikins to provide students with hands-on learning experiences. Simulation learning allows students to conduct their clinical training in a controlled, safe environment which imitates real-life situations that students will face.
Our Nursing Department implements the most current evidence-based nursing, as they teach their students. These simulation activities support many aspects of the curriculum. For instance, students may learn how to treat a patient experiencing acute chest pain. The simulation challenges students to assess the situation, to gather all necessary information, to select a treatment, and to self-evaluate their performance. Videotaped sessions allow students to review their performance, from which they can assess how well they have implemented the nursing process.
AMA simulation includes the following state-of-the-art technology:
• 2 high fidelity adult manikins.
• 1 high fidelity childbearing manikin.
• 1 high fidelity infant manikin.
• 3 moderate fidelity adult manikins.
• 4 high fidelity pediatric manikins.
• 4 moderate fidelity pediatric manikins.
• 4 low fidelity manikins (used for fundamental nursing education).
• Task-training IV arms.
• IV pumps.
• Feeding pumps.
• Anatomage Table (a 3D anatomy visualization system).
AMA Student Success Center:
The AMA Student Success Center (SSC) offers free academic assistance to all AMA students in a comfortable, encouraging environment. Our specialist staff members effectively assist students in improving their critical skills, which they will need in order to grow and succeed in a rigorous, medically focused curriculum. Through one-on-one tutoring, supplemental instruction, workshops, and skills assessments, SSC staff promote student excellence by offering an array of services, which include:
• Assistance with both general education and nursing courses.
• Test-taking strategies and ATI test preparation (ATI testing is an assessment tool, which
identifies nursing student strengths and weaknesses, so that they can prepare to take the NCLEX
examinations.).
• Mathematics and medical-related math tutorials.
• Writing assistance and paper reviews.
• Study skills and time management strategies.
• Reading comprehension and critical thinking tutorials.