Sharing and Supporting the Hopes and Dreams of Students and Faculty in a Canadian BScN Program

Healthcare educators are in a unique position to support students’ personal and professional development. The UOIT-DC Nursing Program curriculum is founded on caring values that assert a commitment to the primacy of relationships. According to humanistic nursing, caring involves the interrelated concepts of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ in which both require an active presence and willingness to come to know another person (Paterson and Zderad, 1976). A deeply held tenet of nursing practice is the notion that when a nurse knows or understands a person, he or she will be better able to care for that person. We believe that this notion also pertains to student and faculty relationships in nursing education, ultimately leading to more effective and meaningful learning opportunities and experiences.This poster will report on a qualitative study exploring undergraduate nursing students’ hopes and dreams when they begin their education and the ways these hopes and dreams may shift and evolve as they progress through the program. The intersections of students’ hopes and dreams for their education and faculty members’ hopes and dreams in teaching students will be presented. The impetus for the project arose from conversations among faculty members about the complex relational nature of nursing education and our hope to enhance relational awareness and practices through a deeper understanding of the aspirations and goals that students hold. Exploration of how the findings may contribute to deeper understandings of and responsiveness to students and the significance of nursing practice and education to them will be presented.ReferencesPaterson, J. G., and Zderad, L. T. (1976). Humanistic nursing. New York: John Wiley and Sons