Licensed Practical/Vocational Nurse: Program Curriculum
The LPN is an entry-level nursing professional who focuses on the practical aspects of basic patient care. However, some of the more advanced and crucial aspects of patient care, (such as patient care plans), are reserved for Registered Nurses. The major differences between the LPN and RN are career advancement opportunities, salary, and depth of scope of practice. The Erudite Nursing Institute® covers all national standards of LPN curricula, to include:
- Early and modern history of nursing
- Associations, commissions, boards, and bureaus for the advancement, regulation, and protection of the Nursing profession
- Overview and scope of practice, roles, and responsibilities of the LPN
- Teamwork, roles and responsibilities, and interworking with other members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team
- Work environments and settings for provisioning care
- Environmental and bio hazards; internal, external, psychological, physical disasters and crises
- Patient safety and workplace safety and respective regulations, as well as best practices
- Practical nursing processes and functions including assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation
- Application of critical thinking and introspection to patient care within the nursing process
- Public speaking and communication skills: verbal and non-verbal techniques
- Cultural economic, educational and other factors to consider within the communication process and how to overcome them
- Diversity, cultural and transcultural competence and ethical sensitivity
- Medical terminology
- Proper patient identification
- Anatomy: cell structures and functions; tissue structures, functions and types; membranes structures, functions and types ; organs and bodily systems
- Standards of nursing care
- State and federal regulatory enactments and policies
- Legal and ethical matters of patient care, privacy, and confidentiality; malpractice, negligence, and professional liability
- Implied consent, expressed consent, and informed consent
- Abuse and neglect of children, elders, and spouses
- Application of the nursing process to cultural, professional, legal, ethical faucets of care
- Physical assessment techniques: Inspection, auscultation, palpation and percussion
- Methods of proper documentation and legal ramifications
- Psychosocial development and cognitive analysis and development
- Medication administration, dosages, contraindications, classifications, and measurements
- Vital signs, health history interview and review, data collection, patient charting, and physical assessments
- Infection control and the chain of infection, sanitation, and sanitary practices; medical and surgical asepsis
- Theoretical introduction to phlebotomy, clinical laboratory skills, and IV Therapy