Take My Liberty NURS 519 Class

The catalog describes NURS 519 as an exploration of the many sides of caring for a patient at the end of life, with the aim of preparing nurses to secure the patient's comfort and quality of life. Law, ethics, the way different cultures understand dying, and grief all fall within it, along with a steady insistence that the dying person and their family be treated with dignity.

The first week asks for two assessments of a patient or family, one spiritual and one cultural, together worth 100 points. Module/Week 2 brings Discussion Board Forum 1 and Questions and Answers 1, each worth 100, and Module/Week 3 brings Forum 2.

The middle weeks turn to applied cases: Case Study 1 in Module/Week 4 and Case Study 2 in Module/Week 5, when students also read Golden's book on grief. Module/Week 6 brings a Research Article assignment on palliative care evidence.

The largest item, the Ethical Dilemma Paper, worth 200 points, falls in Module/Week 7, and Module/Week 8 closes with Questions and Answers 2 after reading Callanan and Kelley.

Golden's and Callanan and Kelley's books are read in full in the published guide, so the course carries more reading than most MSN courses, which is one reason students value having the writing handled.

The coordinator lays the course out against your sub-term with each item drafted several days before its Canvas date. Because the course opens with two assessments in the first week, those are drafted first.

The spiritual and cultural assessments use recognized tools, such as the FICA or HOPE spiritual assessment and a cultural assessment framework, applied to a patient or family you have cared for, with every identifying detail changed. Your notes about that person are the starting point.

The case studies are worked through with the palliative principles in Matzo and Sherman: symptom management, communication about goals of care, family support and the ethics of decisions such as withholding treatment. For the research article, a recent palliative study is read critically and its usefulness for practice judged.

For the ethics paper, the writer chooses a dilemma with real tension in it and reasons it through to a defensible recommendation.

NURS 519 is written by a nurse whose career has been spent largely in hospice and palliative care, with an advanced degree and, often, specialty certification. End-of-life writing needs someone who has sat with dying patients and their families; it shows in the details of symptom care, communication and grief.

The writer knows the course texts: Matzo and Sherman on palliative nursing practice, Golden on how men and women grieve differently, and Callanan and Kelley on the messages and needs of the dying.

The same writer drafts every item, so the assessments, case studies and ethics paper share one voice and one approach to care.

A second palliative care nurse reviews each item before delivery, checking clinical accuracy and ethical reasoning.

The first difficulty is the subject itself. Writing about death, grief and suffering every week is draining, especially for nurses who have recent losses of their own.

The second is the opening week, which asks for two assessments before most students have settled into the course.

The third is the ethical dilemma paper. End-of-life dilemmas, such as withdrawing artificial nutrition, honoring a refusal of treatment, or family disagreement about goals, require careful use of principles, law and faith, and papers that simply state an opinion lose most of the points.

The fourth is the reading. Golden and Callanan and Kelley are read in full in the published guide, alongside chapters of Matzo and Sherman.

NURS 519 is fully written in its published guide: two assessments, two forums, two question sets, two case studies, a research article review and the ethics paper. The quote is built from those items, with the ethics paper as the largest.

The assessments are drafted before the first week closes, the forums and first questions in the second, and the case studies a week ahead of their weeks.

The ethics paper is drafted during Module/Week 6, which gives you time to read it, reflect and adjust it before it is due.

A first message that describes one patient or family whose end-of-life care you remember gives the writer what the assessments and the ethics paper need.

Comments on the opening assessments show how your instructor reads clinical and spiritual material, and the case studies and ethics paper are written with those comments in hand.