Technical Standards

Touro University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and state and local requirements regarding applicants and students with disabilities. The Touro University Handbook for Students and Applicants with Disabilities is available from the School of Health Sciences Office of Disability Services if further information is required.

Nurses deliver health care in a variety of settings to diverse patient populations. The role of the nurse demands intelligence, sound judgment, appropriate interpersonal skills, and the capacity to react to emergencies in a calm and reasoned manner

Required mental and physical abilities fall into six major categories: professionalism, sensory, communication, motor, intellectual, and behavioral/social.

• Professionalism: All students are required to act in a professional manner at all times.
• Sensory: Nursing students must have sufficient visual and auditory ability to observe in lecture-learner, laboratory and patient care settings. Sensory skills required in the performance of complete physical examinations utilizing inspection, percussion, palpation and auscultation include adequate vision, hearing, smell, and tactile sensation.
• Motor: Nursing students must be able to assist with therapeutic and diagnostic procedures in addition to negotiating various health care environments, such as nursing homes and hospitals. The didactic phase of the program requires extended sitting, in contrast to the clinical phase which requires extended standing and moving about various clinical facilities.

The student is expected to be able to perform gross and fine motor movements required to provide comprehensive nursing care. Examples of care that the student must be able to perform safely include, but are not limited to:

• • Turning and positioning the patient as needed to prevent complications due to bed rest or minimal movement
  • Transferring patients in and out of bed
  • Transporting and exercising patients
  • Pulling and pushing patients and/or equipment
  • Administering CPR

The student is expected to have the psychomotor skills necessary to perform or assist with procedures, treatments, medication administration, and emergency interventions. In classroom or clinical (on-campus simulation or off campus), the student is expected to be able to sit, walk, and stand. Examples include, but are not limited to the ability to:

• • Stand and/or sit for long periods of time (eg. 4 hours);
  • Stand and maintain balance while transferring patients, reach below the waist and overhead while providing patient care procedures;
  • Walk without a cane, walker, casts, walking boots, or crutches as well as arms free of casts or other assistive/restrictive devices in order to ambulate patient and provide general nursing care;
  • Maneuver in small areas such as patient rooms and nursing work stations;
  • Conduct assessments that may also require the student to bend, squat, reach, kneel, or balance and/or move his or her body and all extremities quickly;
  • Carry and lift loads from the floor, lift loads from 12 inches from the floor to shoulder height and overhead; occasionally lifting 50 pounds, frequently lifting 25 pounds, and constantly lifting 10 pounds;
  • Document patient care by writing or typing on an electronic medical record for long periods of time (eg. Longer than 15 minutes at a time)

The student is expected to be able to maintain consciousness and equilibrium and have the physical strength and stamina to perform satisfactorily in clinical nursing experiences. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• • The physical endurance sufficient to complete assigned period of clinical practice (care for 4 -5 hours as well as shifts on days, evenings, nights, or weekends between 8-12 hours)
  • The ability to perform at acceptable speed which reflects the ability to carry out the usual patient care assignment for a particular course w/I the allotted clinical time.

• Communication: Nursing students must be able to read and understand, write and speak English for effective classroom and laboratory communication. Nursing students must be able to record and communicate patient information in a timely and effective manner to other members of the health care team.

Examples of necessary skills include but are not limited to:

• • Normal tactile feeling and use of touch to feel sensitivity to heat, cold, pain, pressure, etc.
  • Use of auditory sense to detect sounds related to bodily functions using a stethoscope; to hear and interpret many people and correctly interpret what is heard (doctor’s, physician assistants, patients, in person or over phone, physical assessments, such as heart or other body sounds, fire alarms, etc).
  • Auditory sense to communicate clearly in telephone conversations and respond effectively with patients and with other members of the healthcare team.
  • Acute visual skills necessary to detect signs and symptoms, body language of patients, color of wounds and drainage, and possible infections anywhere on patients’ body. Interpret written word accurately, read characters and identify colors on the computer screen.
  • Functional use of sense of vision, touch, hearing taste, and smell. Ability to visually assess patients, including color recognition and make accurate visual observations and interpret them in context of laboratory studies, medication administration, and patient care activities. Ability to perceive pain, pressure, temperature, position, equilibrium and movement, including fine discriminations in sound. Ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing.

• Intellectual: Nursing students must be able to sustain attention, calculate, reason, analyze, assimilate, and recall information. Correlating information to arrive at a reasonable clinical conclusion in a timely fashion is a basic tenet of clinical practice. With rapidly expanding avenues of clinical information, the ability to extract valid, useful and relevant information from the medical literature is also required.
• Behavioral and Social Attributes: Nursing students must be able to relate and perform professionally in a work environment with other members of the health care team. Recognizing limitations, demonstrating concern for patients and exercising good judgment are also required attributes.