Nursing (Children’s & General)  (NSS3)

The BSc (Nursing) Integrated Children’s and General Programme prepares nurses to promote health, wellbeing and dignity across the lifespan through skilled, ethical and careful practice based on the best evidence and professional judgement. This is achieved though the development of lifelong learning skills for the personal and professional development of knowledge, skills/competencies and attitudes over the duration of the programme, leading to level 8 award and  a dual professional registration in children’s and general nursing with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland. UCD programmes facilitate the learner to be active, reflexive, autonomous, and motivated through engagement in innovative teaching and learning activities throughout the duration of the student experience. UCD curricula are student-focused, research-led and research informed. There is a scholarly approach to programme design, aimed at inspiring a passion and excellence in the learner’s discipline. This is realised through the formation of identity, resilience, integrity, leadership capability, commitment, and curiosity for the provision of holistic, safe, ethical, compassionate and evidence based nursing care.  Curricula are developed with stakeholder involvement to ensure they meet the current and future needs of learners, and a complex and evolving healthcare system.

The BSc (Nursing) Integrated Children’s and General Programme programme is designed with the learner at the centre. A wide variety of innovative pedagogies and technologies in teaching, learning, and assessment approaches encourage the incremental development of learning. Teaching and learning takes place in multiple environments across the university and clinical practice settings.  A major strength of the programme is the partnership with our professional and allied health professional clinical partners across the healthcare sector. Student’s adaptive capacity to meet emerging personal, professional and health system needs is enabled by their learning.  This ensures commitment to curricular innovation, alignment of programme learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment. In addition to enhancing the learner experience, programmes are delivered by experts in the fields of education, practice discipline and professional standing. This ensures that learners experience coherent, cumulative, research-based educational programmes that meet all academic and professional regulations, standards and requirements.

 

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1 - 1. Apply professional and disciplinary knowledge, skills and competencies and attitudes to achieve safe, high quality, and compassionate practice across the lifespan in diverse health care settings.
2 - 2. Employ critical, creative, reflective, independent thinking and problem solving to ensure clinical decision making and care is safe, effective, evidence based and child centred and family focused/person-centred.
3 - Be independent learners who value lifelong learning and will engage in continuing professional development throughout their career thus enabling them to be adaptive to the dynamically altering environment within society and health system environment
4 - 4. Critically analyse, evaluate and apply research findings in order to advance nursing/midwifery practice and health care delivery.
5 - 5. Communicate with relevant stakeholders in a manner that respectful, effective and professional. This skilled communication is distinguished by timely, just and comprehensive engagement.
6 - 6.Collaborate effectively in partnership with service users, their families, the public, peers and other members of the interdisciplinary team in a competent, compassionate and professional manner that respects autonomy, dignity and privacy.
7 - 7. Lead and effect change in their practice area, promoting innovation by managing and delivering evidence based care. The extent of their learning and how it impacts on healthcare delivery and outcomes is reflected upon and systematically evaluated.
8 - 8. Demonstrates a critical awareness of the parameters for professional nursing practice within the relevant ethical, legal and regulatory frameworks.
9 - 9. Use technology effectively to facilitate adaptation to a dynamic societal and health systems environment.
10 - 10. Engage in the development of the profession to act as an advocate and demonstrate a social conscience and social responsibility.

If you are interested in a rewarding, exciting and challenging career in healthcare, then nursing is for you. As a registered nurse, you have a wide range of clinical career options open to you, and with your academic and professional qualifications, you can choose to travel anywhere in the world.

A degree in nursing provides you with the expert knowledge and clinical skills needed to care for people in a wide range of healthcare settings. A nursing degree is a professional degree that allows the graduate to apply for registration as a nurse with the professional regulatory authority for nursing in Ireland, An Bord Altranais.

A degree in Nursing at UCD is a four-year (or four-and-a-half-year for DN116 and DN117) honours degree that aims to develop knowledgeable, competent and caring professionals, by combining theoretical and clinical elements.

Students taking a degree in nursing pursue one of three modes of study as follows:
- BSc (Nursing) General Nursing (4 years) DN110/DN111
- BSc (Nursing) Psychiatric Nursing (4 years) DN120/DN121
- BSc (Nursing) Children's and General Nursing (Integrated) (4.5 years) DN116/DN117

Students interested in taking the General Nursing (DN110/DN111) or Children's and General (Integrated) Nursing (DN116/DN117) options will experience a variety of care settings, including acute medical and surgical, accident & emergency, operating theatre, intensive care, maternity and childcare, care of older persons, children's nursing and community care.

Students hoping to take the Psychiatric Nursing option (DN120/DN121) are placed in care settings such as acute assessment and admission, weight restoration programmes, addiction services, forensic services, child and adolescent services, intellectual disability services and community care.

Each nursing mode is pre-chosen through the CAO system and the programme content varies according to the mode being followed. However, all degree students follow a number of common modules in both the life and human sciences. Examples of subjects studied in the life sciences include:
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Biochemistry
- Pharmacology
- Microbiology
- Structure & function of the human body
Examples of subjects studied in the human sciences include:
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Health & social policy
- Ethics

Core modules covered on the General Nursing option in particular include: Clinical Placement Operating Theatre and Clinical Placement High Dependency in Stage 2; Clinical Placement Maternity Care and Clinical Placement Out-patient Department in Stage 3; and Social Science for Healthcare in Stage 4.

Some core modules specific to the Psychiatric Nursing programme include: Foundations in Mental Health in Stage 1; Clinical Placement Addiction Services and Pharmacology & Pathology in Stage 2; Acute Mental Illness and Therapeutic Interventions in Stage 3; and Management & Quality Improvement and Health & Social Policy in Stage 4.
Core modules expressly found on the Children's & General Nursing programme include: The Child in Health & Wellness and Child & Family Centred Nursing in Stage 2; Child and Adolescent Special Healthcare Needs in Stage 3; Bioscience Applied to Nursing in Stage 4; and Clinical Placement Children's & General in the final stage.

The degree programmes emphasise the development of knowledge for clinical practice - the science of nursing science - and the development of a range of competencies needed for professional practice as a registered nurse. All three nursing degree programmes incorporate periods of theoretical and clinical instruction at each of the four/four-and-a-half stages and include a period of internship in clinical practice under the supervision of registered nurses as a member of the care team in the final year, for which you are paid a salary.

Depending on your chosen mode of study, you will undertake a range of theoretical and clinical modules that are designed to meet the professional requirements for registration in the particular division of the Register of Nurses.

You will study in state-of-the-art facilities in Ireland at the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems building, located at the university's Health Sciences Centre. You will take your clinical placements within the School's partner university hospitals and in other healthcare institutions and settings.

You may have the opportunity to study in a choice of European locations for a trimester in Stage 2. See www.ucd.ie/nmhs/courses/ international/erasmusexchange/

Completing this degree qualifies you as both a Registered General Nurse and a Registered Children’s Nurse. Your future professional role can extend beyond clinical practice to encompass education, research and management. There are also excellent work and travel opportunities in Ireland and throughout Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Your continuing professional education may also include studies at higher diploma, graduate diploma, Masters and PhD level.

UCD Nursing Midwifery and Health Systems Programme Office
Health Sciences Centre
Belfield,
Dublin 4

Tel: +353 1 716 6407
Email: nursing@ucd.ie
Web: www.ucd.ie/nmhs

Stage 1

Students take all core modules. There are no elective modules in stage 1. Students must successfully complete all of the requirements for Stage 1 clinical practice module before progressing onto Stage 2.

Stage 2

Students take all core modules. There are no elective modules in stage 2. For each theory module successfully completed at Level 2, 5 ECTS credits will be awarded and a total of 20 ECTS credits will be awarded for successfully completed clinical practice module at level 2 (i.e. a total of 60 ECTS credits for stage 2). Students must successfully complete all of the requirements for Stage 2 clinical practice module before progressing to Stage 3.

Stage 3

Students take all core modules. There are no elective modules in stage 3. For each theory module successfully completed at level 3, 5 ECTS credits will be awarded and a total of 20 ECTS credits for successfully completed clinical practice modules at level 3 (i.e. a total of 60 ECTS credits for stage 3). Students must successfully complete all of the requirements for Stage 3 clinical practice modules before progressing onto Stage 4.

Stage 4

Year 1 - Stage 4 is completed over two (2) years. Students commencing stage 4 (year 1) in Sept 2024 must undertake all of the Year 1 core modules as outlined in the first section below. Stage 4 (year 1) students will also take two (2) internship modules in the summer trimester of year 1 of stage 4 and the other two (2) internship modules in autumn trimester of year 2 (2025-26). Stage 4 (year 1) students should be registered to a total of 70 credits in 2024.
Year 2 Students commencing stage 4 (year 2) in Sept 2024 will undertake the remaining two (2) internship modules in the autumn trimester 2024-25. Stage 4 (year 2) students should be registered to a total of 20 ECTS credits in 2024-25.

See the UCD Assessment website for further details

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