By Monica Groce, RN, MSN-Ed

Lead Instructor, PNE Program

The art of nursing is an intensely visual practice. Students have to learn how to begin a patient assessment the moment they walk through the door by what their patient looks like. Are they breathing too fast? Too slow? Does their skin coloration indicate a problem with oxygenation? What does it mean if a wound doesn’t blanch?

In order to support this type of learning, I decided to introduce the use of concept mapping which is a chart that students create to translate patient problems and the supporting data into a visual representation that assists in the creation of nursing diagnoses, nursing interventions, and patient goal-setting. As a result, I’ve found that students are better understanding the interrelationship between patient presentations, the problems they represent, what to do about those problems, and how to determine whether the patient has met the goal the student has developed for them. I have seen them perform better in clinical as well!

In the next course, we will begin discovering more complex patient problems. In order to keep the momentum going, students will be required to complete a concept map for each problem we cover in class and either keep it in a digital file or print out to keep in a binder so that they can refer to it in clinical. They will have the experience required to construct a concept map for patient problems they begin to encounter at the hospital level as well.

*Note that screen readers have difficulty reading most concept maps in an order that makes sense. When using digital concept maps, feel free to contact amy_holmes@davidsondavie.edu for support.

By Amy Holmes

Twenty DDCC students and community members traveled with leaders Amy Holmes and Aaron Prillaman to Ireland and Northern Ireland over fall break. We learned about how the people of Ireland were oppressed throughout history and how the Civil Rights Movement in the United States inspired Northern Ireland's Civil Rights Movement.

In addition to the history lessons and visiting the sites where those events occurred, we had fun riding horses on the beach and learning to surf in Bundoran, Ireland's surf capital! Everyone agreed that Ireland's landscapes are so green and beautiful and were grateful that the land is being preserved for future generations.