DNAP 700c - Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostics (3)

The Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostics course prepares the nurse anesthesia student to perform a comprehensive history, physical, and psychological health assessment of patients across the lifespan, with focus geared to critical care and pre-/post-anesthesia settings. Didactic lectures integrate select pathophysiologic alterations with assessment abnormalities using a body systems approach. Case-based activities provide opportunities to critically evaluate perioperative clinical findings, identify significant potential complications, and formulate prevention/management strategies. The rationale behind ordering appropriate diagnostic and laboratory studies are included to help develop the student’s critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills to further augment their comprehensive clinical evaluation. Instructor-led case discussions focus on specific aspects of pre-/post-anesthesia assessment, such as disease processes, psychosocial issues, cultural matters, ethical considerations, and spirituality concerns. Case discussions help the student appropriately integrate these special components into advanced patient care evaluation. 

Supervised laboratory practice sessions provide an opportunity for the nurse anesthesia student to integrate medical knowledge and cognitive processing with psychomotor skills needed for the proper assessment of patients across the lifespan. Continual hands-on practice allows for the assessment of all human organ systems from head-to-toe, providing structured evaluation of the student’s grasp of advanced assessment techniques, including the development of a differential diagnosis, the understanding of medical concepts, and the development of effective and appropriate patient management/plan of care.