The field of nursing is challenged today by a number of factors, among which the nursing shortage, managed care and its consequences, emergent technologies and their demands, and new practice opportunities are but a few (O'Connor & Walker, 2003). According to some analysts, responding to these challenges and encouraging students to enter the field of nursing is mandating the advancement of scholarship through curriculum planning, development, and evaluation (O'Connor & Walker, 2003). This report will consider the kinds of changes needed to improve the curriculum for nursing students to meet the health care system's current and future needs.
Siegrist (2004) pointed out that adequate preparation of Bachelor of Science and Nursing (BSN) graduates has been complicated by increased competition among educational institutions, including competition for clinical practice and internship sites. Virtually all nursing students must participate in some fairly lengthy clinical internship or student practice. As nursing becomes a more specialized profession, institutions of learning are competing to permit their students to occupy somewhat limited internship opportunities at, for example, public health clinics, emergency rooms, and so forth. Increasing these opportunities in communities in which nursing schools are located is one of the changes that Siegrist (2004) supports.
Nursing education must take on the responsibility of preparing future practitioners in a number of fields. Holmes (2004) calls for incorporating technology-oriented courses into nursing curriculum. It is this analyst's opinion that enriching the technology content of traditional nursing school curriculum will better prepare nurses for better real world practice where new technologies are shaping such nursing interactions as assessment, tracking and charting, care delivery, discharge planning, and so forth.
Holmes (2004) further emphasized the necessity of e...