About this department

About Nursing

Nursing is defined as “assistance to individuals or groups in all conditions concerning the maintenance, promotion, and recovery of good health” (1964. Japanese Nursing Association). It suggests that the subject of nursing care is not limited to individuals but also covers their families and communities, and the level of health to be handled is diverse.

Function and role of nursing

The function of nursing includes providing assistance in daily life, helping therapeutic treatment, and other direct nursing activities, as well as maintenance of the physiological, psychological, and social environment for maintaining good health and recovering from diseases, providing health education and other educational activities for disease prevention, joint activities with health care teams, and coordination of nursing activities. While its legal definition is stated in the Act on Public Health Nurses, Midwives and Nurses, the expectations for nursing is on the rise along with the progress in medical care and diversifying needs of the people. Along with the increasing specialization of the educational system, the role of nurses is also expected to expand and develop to cover complicated tasks, which require advanced knowledge, skills, and decision making.

Courses

Basic nursing course

In the basic nursing course, an education covering the basics of nursing is provided. The fields covered are basic nursing and clinical basic nursing.

• With regard to basic nursing, subjects covering the basics of nursing are provided. In the 1st semester of the 1st year, “Basic Nursing”, “Nursing Counseling I” and “Basic Nursing Practice” are provided. These subjects are expected to deepen the understanding concerning the basic concepts of nursing, namely “people, environment, life, health, and nursing” and help the students form their perspectives on nursing. In the 2nd semester of the 1st year, “Basic Skills in Nursing Practice”, “Basic Nursing Practical Seminars I” and “Basic Nursing Practical Seminars II” are provided. These subjects cover the methodologies that form the basis of the skills required for nursing.
• With regard to clinical basic nursing, “Clinical Basic Nursing I”, “Clinical Basic Nursing II”, “Clinical Basic Nursing Practical Seminar I”, “Clinical Basic Nursing Practical Seminar II”, and “Clinical Basic Nursing Practice” are provided in the 1st and 2nd semesters in the 2nd year. These subjects cover the knowledge, skills, and methodologies required especially for practicing clinical nursing among the basic nursing education. In the seminars, the students practice basic nursing skills based on scientific evidences to prepare for clinical practices.

Clinical nursing course

In the clinical nursing course, we provide education and research experiences that help the students acquire methods to technically assess and provide assistance for physical and mental health issues in adulthood by studying the perspectives of nursing theories and knowledge as well as the theories and knowledge in other fields, such as medical science, psychology, and sociology.

Family nursing course

Along with a declining birthrate and the spread of nucleus families in the 21st century, families are important social units and provide a temporary support system for maintaining and promoting a healthy life. We provide education and research experiences that help the students acquire methods to directly or indirectly support couples to raise their children in various family and social forms and environments.

Community nursing course

In the aging society with a declining birthrate, communities face various health issues, such as those related to home nursing care, preventive long-term care, community development, child rearing, life style related diseases, elderly people with dementia. We provide education and research experiences that help the students acquire the technical theories and skills for community nursing and nursing care for the elderly in relation to handling issues, such as those for establishing community care systems, ensuring community organization activities, handling life style related diseases, providing home nursing, and promoting successful aging.

Characteristics

Characteristics of this department

At the Department of Nursing, we strive to foster medical specialists with the following capacities:

• Capacity to support people of all health levels among individuals, families, and communities
• Capacity to provide holistic care from physical, psychological, and social perspectives with deep love of humanity based on respect for life, high code of ethics and ability to bring out the will to live and provide assistance for living independently

Curriculum

1. ​Professional education

   From the 1st semester at the Department of Nursing, we provide “Basic Nursing” that forms the basis of nursing studies and “Nursing Counseling I” that focuses on communication along with common subjects and basic specialized subjects. These subjects are designed to deepen the understanding concerning the basic concepts of nursing, namely “people, environment, life, health, and nursing” and help the students grow their interest in nursing as well as form their perspectives on nursing. In the 2nd semester, “Basic Skills in Nursing Practice”, “Basic Nursing Practical Seminars I” and “Basic Nursing Practical Seminars II” are provided to teach methodologies more specifically.
   From the 2nd year, we provide specialized subjects in the fields of adult health nursing, elderly nursing, maternal health nursing, pediatric nursing, psychiatric mental health nursing, and community nursing. Based on the learning in basic specialized subjects and Basic Nursing on human body structure, bodily functions, and pathology, the students learn the characteristics and perspectives in each field, how to assess people with diseases and their conditions, and how to provide the necessary support. In some seminars, multiple departments collaborate to provide case studies for learning more specifically and practically how to provide support.

2. ​Clinical practice and research

   At the Department of Nursing, clinical practice is introduced step by step from the 1st to 4th years. As the first step, “Basic Nursing Practice” is provided to study the relationship between people’s life, their environment and health, so as to broaden the students’ horizons. “Clinical Basic Nursing Practice” is also provided to help the students think about what it means to be hospitalized and the kind of assistance required, and provide assistance using basic skills.
   As the second step, clinical practices in the fields of adult health nursing, maternal health nursing, pediatric nursing, and psychiatric mental health nursing are provided to deepen the understanding on how to provide assistance and the characteristics of nursing. These clinical practices will also provide opportunities to learn about the cooperation and collaboration with other professions and acquire multidisciplinary perspectives. The clinical training facilities cover a wide range of institutions, from Kyoto University Hospital to hospitals and childcare facilities in Kyoto Prefecture.
   As the third step, “Home Care Nursing Clinical Practice” and “Community Health Nursing Clinical Practice” are provided to learn about how to provide assistance in home care and community nursing, and integrate the clinical practices provided up to the second step to deepen the understanding on to whom and where to provide nursing. Each student will select a field from among the fields they have studied in accordance with their theme and study the field more thoroughly as research though practice. For the research, the students are required to read various documents, device the research plan, collect data, and write their graduation thesis under guidance of their tutors. Through this process, the students are expected to deepen their perspectives on nursing as well as form the basis for effectively working in the fields of clinical practice, education, and research.

3. ​Public health nurse elective course

   The public health nurse elective course is provided to acquire the eligibility to take the national public health nurse examination. The elective subjects in this course are provided in the 3rd and 4th years. Due to the limit on the number, there is a selective examination after the 3rd semester for the applicants of the public health nurse elective course. By the end of the 3rd semester, the applicants are required to have obtained the credits for all assigned compulsory subjects and compulsory elective subjects. Those who have selected the public health nurse elective course will undergo a clinical practice during the 7th semester and write their graduation thesis.

   Midwifery elective course at the School of Human Health Science has closed after the class entering the school in 2010. Since 2011, it has been available in the master’s course at the graduate school.
   (=> Advanced practice midwifery course)

Qualification

Qualification

• Nurse (eligibility to take the national examination)
• Public health nurse (eligibility to take the national examination)*
  * In the public health nurse course, there is an assessment of the learning progress and selective examination during the 2nd year.
• The class-2 school nurse teacher license can be acquired by obtaining the specified credits (elective subjects) and passing the national public health nurse examination.
• The class-1 health officer’s license can be acquired by passing the national public health nurse examination and applying to the prefectural labor bureau.

Career

The graduates’ career includes working at hospitals, clinics, home nursing stations, public health centers, municipalities, facilities for the elderly, research institutions, government offices, international agencies, schools, and companies, as well as continuing the education into graduate school. The graduates are expected to further expand their areas of activity in the future.

Employment

Photographs