Standing, Walking, Sitting

Standing and walking is required for an 8 hour community lab in the fall quarter and progresses to 16 hours per week winter and spring quarter. Summer community labs are 24 hours per week. Students may be required to sit to receive or to give oral reports, breaks, conferences and classes.

Lifting

Students are required to lift medical supplies, equipment and other treatment items up to 10 pounds. They may need to lift CPR equipment weighing up to 40 pounds. Students must have within reasonable limits the ability to lift patients, transfer patients in and out of bed and on and off a commode and to assist others with patient lifts and transfers. Skilled nursing care requires touching patients and clients and having them touch your upper body when assisting them up, out and back into bed.

Carrying, Pushing and Pulling

The student may be required to carry equipment that weighs up to 40 pounds. The student may be expected to push and pull equipment that includes monitors, wheelchairs, gurneys and patient room furniture. The student may be expected to pull the patient up in bed. Pushing is required at 3.5 pounds of pressure when administering CPR.

Climbing, Reaching, Squatting and Kneeling

The student may be required to climb a foot stool. Students may be required to reach above their heads to add irrigation solution or to add an additional IV solution. They may be required to squat or kneel to do foot assessment and care for patients.

Using Your Feet and Driving

Students may be required to use foot controls on beds, gurneys and other special equipment. Students are responsible for their own transportation. Some of our community lab sites may not be within convenient bus routes.

Students must have fine motor skills for tasks such as administering injections, sterile insertion of catheters, needles and eye drops and wound irrigations. They must be able to assess the patient through palpation with fingers and hand. Students must be able to distinguish between hot and cold and able to feel vibrations. The repetitive motion of hands and fingers is required for typing related to chart entry.

Students must:

• Have hearing and hearing aid accommodation in order to perform physical assessment with stethoscopes for bowel tones, heart and lungs sounds.
• Be able to hear the frail, weak voices of elderly people who call out for help.
• Be able to communicate over the intercom and phone.
• Have visual acuity within normal accommodated limits for monitoring equipment, reading computer charts, preparing medications for injections and detecting changes in color of lips and nail bed coloring
• Have depth perception for administering injections, sterile insertion of needles, catheters
• Have a normal sense of smell to detect odors indicating unsafe conditions or changing patient status.

Students must be able to effectively communicate in oral and written forms of English. They must be able to process patient information and communicate it effectively to other members of their health care teams. The student’s ability to communicate also includes the ability to consult with faculty members in a timely manner as it relates to patient safety and welfare.

Students must be able to measure, calculate, reason, analyze, integrate and synthesize in the context of college-level practical nursing. They must be able to read quickly and comprehend directions while analyzing, evaluating and applying information. Students must also think critically in the classroom and in the community lab setting.

Students must have the emotional health required for the full use of their intellectual abilities, to exercise good judgment and to promptly complete all responsibilities that accompany safe patient care. They must be able to work with all on the care team. Students must abide by the professional standards as identified by the curriculum concept threads identified in the student’s practical nursing handbook. A student must not pose harm to the patients or other health care team members.

The student must abide by the standards of the program of practical nursing and the uniform disciplinary act that include but not limited to, ethical and moral behavior.