College of Nursing

"During my journey at MUSC, I’ve witnessed firsthand the growth of leaders, students committed to advocacy, a fearless approach to research and innovation, and a powerful dedication to compassionate care that values each person whose life we touch." 

—Teresa Kelechi, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, Interim Dean, David and Margaret Clare Endowed Chair

Introduction

Established in 1883 as a school of nursing, the college provides the southeastern region of the United States with professional nurses who are educated to provide comprehensive, quality health care across the continuum. Approximately 550 undergraduate and graduate students study with an outstanding clinical faculty in an academic health science center environment. Located in the geographic center of campus adjacent to the Medical University Hospital and the other colleges, the College of Nursing is well equipped with clinical and research laboratories. Opportunities for clinical experience in the Medical University Hospital, private, county, and military hospitals, community health agencies, clinics, day care centers, and gerontology facilities provide students with rich backgrounds. The college offers a quality educational program leading to a baccalaureate degree in nursing (B.S.N.), a master of science degree in nursing (M.S.N.), a doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and a doctor of philosophy in nursing science (Ph.D.). A low student-faculty ratio ensures that nursing students are provided the opportunity to learn in a supportive environment.

MUSC College of Nursing Vision, Mission and Core Values Statement

Our Vision

The Medical University of South Carolina College of Nursing will be a preeminent leader in nursing education, practice, and research to improve the culture of health and quality of life.

Our Mission

In an interprofessional environment that is respectful, inclusive, transformative, innovative, and sensitive to a changing fiscal climate, the MUSC CON is committed to promoting health through:

• Providing evidence-based nursing education
• Generating, translating, and disseminating scientific knowledge
• Leading excellence in practice

Our Core Values

Integrity

• Demonstrate honesty, ethics and moral strength in every aspect of personal and professional life
• Ensure equity and fairness
• Uphold organization standards of conduct, policies, and procedures

Innovation

• Advance the profession of nursing through research, practice, scholarship,and life-long learning
• Seek and embrace new and bold opportunities to ensure fiscal responsibility while ensuring the college’s growth potential during stable as well as unstable financial climates

Impact

• Shape and re-envision the nursing profession by providing cutting edge education and experiential learning opportunities
• Act intentionally to achieve significant and influential outcomes for our global society
• Transform health care through collaborative leadership, policy, and advocacy

Inclusivity

• Embrace and promote diversity
• Celebrate individual talents and strengths
• Create and promote an environment of belonging where people feel empowered, respected, and valued

Philosophy

The College of Nursing, one of six health science colleges of the Medical University of South Carolina, is responsible for the education, research, and practice of nurses in an interprofessional health sciences environment. The philosophy of the College of Nursing embodies the concepts of nursing, health, person, and environment, within education, research, and practice. The faculty believes that the discipline of nursing is both an art and a science.

Nursing, interpersonal and caring in nature, encompasses the promotion of health, the prevention of disease and injury, and the diagnosis, support, and treatment of human responses to actual or potential health problems. The domain of nursing is based on the synthesis of biological, behavioral, social, cultural, and nursing sciences, with the focus on populations across the life span to maximize their potential for optimal health. As a practice discipline, nursing permits its members to enter and improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities for purposes of healing, learning, and adaptation. Nursing practice is dynamic because it grows continually through interpersonal connections with health care research, education, quality improvement, and advocacy. Operating within professional value systems and ethical frameworks, nurses work independently and collaboratively and assume accountability and responsibility for the delivery of evidence-based, cost effective nursing care. Nurses incorporate the concept of diversity in practice and in relations with the communities they serve and their fellow workers. Nurses realize human differences require continual investigation, learning, critical self-reflection, and change for people to achieve full access, inclusion, equity, and participation in human relations, education, and health care. Nurses recognize human communication as the mutual negotiation of ideas, meaning and understanding for health and human purposes. This mutual exchange can be influenced by social contexts, cultural beliefs, habitus, affiliations, and experiences.

Health is a dynamic state of being in which a person's biologic, developmental, and behavioral characteristics are maximized. Each human being possesses strengths and limitations resulting from the interaction of environmental and genetic factors, which determine the person's biological and behavioral integrity. Health promotion is the science of helping people change their lifestyle within their sociocultural contexts and environmental conditions to move toward a state of optimal health. Health promotion is an interpersonal process and an intrapersonal product. As an interpersonal process, health promotion motivates persons and communities through the provision of education to adopt positive attitudes and behaviors that will assist persons in attaining their optimal health. As an intrapersonal product, health promotion assists persons and communities to incorporate knowledge, attitudes and behaviors that maintain wellness within the cultural frameworks and social conditions in which they make decisions.

Persons are holistic, social, and culturally diverse beings with integrated body, mind, and spirit, existing within the context of families, groups, and communities. Each person is unique, has dignity and self-worth, has the potential for change, and has the right to self-determination. A person has an inherent capacity to grow and develop throughout the life cycle. As unique individuals with different capacities and vulnerabilities, each person has the potential to affect their human responses and health outcomes. A person has the right to access, fair representation, equity, respect, and participation in health services.Environments have an impact on the health, availability of services, and quality of care of individuals, families, groups, and communities. Environments include the natural, institutional, man-made, and physical arrangements in which a being operates. Each person and community exists within an ecological balance that influences human well-being, while at the same time human decision-making affects the health of environmental systems. Nursing interventions are directed toward creating, modifying, and enhancing environments to promote optimal health.

Learning is an active, life-long process of acquiring and integrating new information and insights that build upon previous knowledge. The faculty facilitates learning environments in which students assimilate and apply scientific and humanistic knowledge and experience, and develop self-awareness, self-direction, creativity, and critical thinking. Students are accountable and assume responsibility for their own learning by engaging in ongoing independent, self-directed learning. The faculty is responsible for providing a respectful environment conducive to learning and to serve as role models of professional nursing practice. The faculty believes that collaboration with other health care professionals, consumers, and communities is essential to teaching, learning and providing health care in a changing society.

Research, a systematic process of creating, evaluating, disseminating, translating, and utilizing knowledge, is critical to the development of nursing as a scientific discipline, and includes clinical research, epidemiology, public health, social science, health systems and outcomes research, and nursing education research. Nursing research develops knowledge to “build the scientific foundation for clinical practice; prevent disease and disability; manage and eliminate symptoms caused by illness and enhance end-of-life palliative care”  (NINR, 2015)." Nurses may engage in a variety of research approaches within health and human service and human science dimensions. The integration of research into practice involves the pursuit of quality improvement in practice to improve health outcomes, the use of evidence-based guidelines and the highest level of evidence, and a systematic approach to evaluate safety, behavior change, and quality of care. Research informs practice and practice informs research.

Nursing practice involves the care of patients, families and communities. Additionally, it is the clinical laboratory for student education, faculty enrichment, and clinical research. Nursing practice occurs within multiple settings in health care institutions and the community. It encompasses the care of individuals, families, groups, and communities across the lifespan. Nursing promotes wellness, prevents illness, restores health, and facilitates adaptive coping. Professional nurses provide services independently and in teams with other health care providers and consumers of health care. Academic faculty practice fosters improvement in information management, synthesis and application of knowledge, evidence-based outcomes and changes in nursing and health care services and policy.

Accreditation

The College of Nursing BSN and MSN programs are accredited by The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) effective April 2010 to June 2026. The Doctor of Nursing Practice Program (DNP) is accredited effective October 2010 to June 2026. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education is a resource for the information regarding the Nursing program. More information may be found at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing website.