The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice was first released in 1986 by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), and has since been revised in 1998 and 2008. The Essentials is an important framework used to design and assess baccalaureate education programs for professional nursing practice, it outlines comprehensive core standards, the necessary competencies and set of courses for baccalaureate graduate nurses (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2017).The Essentials is one of the national efforts that define and describe the basic knowledge, values and professional conduct expected of the baccalaureate nursing graduates.
There are a total of nine Essentials; our focus on this review will be on Practice Essential I: Liberal Education for Baccalaureate Generalist Nursing Practice. According to this Essential, liberal education is one that fosters across multiple fields of study, such as wide range of science knowledge, cultures and society (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2017). The rationale of promoting such learning in nursing is to promote active commitment to personal and social responsibility among the students, high levels of intellectual and practical skills as well as foster utilization of learning to solve various challenges and complex problems that face nursing profession. Essential I put it clearly that liberal education consists of arts and sciences, as such, liberal education play an important role of making dependable citizens in the society who can provide leadership as a socially responsible citizen.
According to Essential I, nurses who have undergone liberal education system are handy in addressing various complex challenges facing the nursing profession within a healthcare team and also make appropriate clinical judgments. Since liberal education promotes study of social sciences, natural sciences and humanities, learners are equipped with knowledge and skills necessary to enable them undertake social work and other leadership roles in the society. The Essential I further points out that successfully integrating liberal education into nursing education ensures that nursing graduates are introduced to different human cultures such as spiritual beliefs and diverse family backgrounds which are essential in providing holistic patient care (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2017). Moreover, liberal education emphasizes the need for baccalaureate nursing graduates to develop personal values system that enables them to make ethical judgments.
In summary, the Essential has clearly demonstrated the relevance of liberal education to nursing profession and the reasons as to why it should be integrated in the nursing curriculum. Liberal education as evident in Essential I is relevant to the nursing practice since nursing profession deals not only with providing direct care to patients, but also addressing diverse range of challenges in technology, aging population, different cultural needs as well as political and economic dynamics. From the Essential I, I have learnt that teaching nursing students on both arts and sciences creates a strong foundation for them to visibly understand disease processes as well as health in general, thus enabling them to have capacity for clinical reasoning.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2017). American Association of Colleges of Nursing | The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/order-form/baccalaureate-essentials
