Technical Abilities and Skills

Abilities and Skills for the Undergraduate Nursing Major 

The professional nurse must possess the knowledge and ability to effectively assess clients’ biophysical, psychological, social, cultural, and intellectual domains. Further, the professional nurse must competently analyze the assessment data through intellectual processing to arrive at a definition of the client’s status or problem, plan independently or collaboratively for full range of therapeutic interventions, execute all or part of the plans through nursing acts, and evaluate the care delivered and the client’s responses to it. A candidate for professional nursing must have the abilities and skills necessary for use of the nursing process. These skills and abilities include observations; communication, motor ability, conceptualization, integration and quantification, and behavioral/social acceptability. 

Standards and Functional Abilities for the Undergraduate Nursing Major 

The School of Nursing affirms that all students enrolled in a nursing program must possess those intellectual, ethical, physical, and emotional capabilities required to undertake the full curriculum and to achieve the levels of competence required by the faculty for safe professional practice. 

Technological compensation can be made for some handicaps in certain areas, but a candidate should be able to perform in a reasonably independent manner. The use of a trained intermediary is not acceptable, in that a candidate’s judgment must be mediated by someone else’s power of observation and selection. 

 The following abilities and skills are necessary to meet the requirements of the curriculum: 

Observations: The candidate must be able to observe a patient accurately at a distance and close at hand. Observation necessitates the functional use of the sense of vision and tactile sensation. It is enhanced by the functional sense of smell. 

 Communication: The candidate must be able to speak, hear, and to observe patients in order to elicit information; describe changes in mood, activity, and posture; and perceive nonverbal communications.  A candidate must be able to communicate effectively and sensitively with patients. Communication includes not only speech but reading and writing. The candidate must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently in oral and written form with all members of the health care team. 

 Motor: Candidates should have sufficient motor function to elicit information from patients by palpation, auscultation, percussion, and other assessment maneuvers. A candidate must have sufficient motor skills to gain access to clients in a variety of care settings and to manipulate the equipment central to the treatment of patients receiving professional nursing care. Such actions require coordination of both gross and fine muscular movements, equilibrium, and functional use of the senses of touch and vision. Examples of required fine motor skills would include, but are not limited to, preparation and administration of oral and injectable medications, assessment of vital signs, application of dressings, and insertion of drainage catheters. Examples of required gross motor skills would include, but are not limited to, positioning clients in bed, assisting with ambulation, transferring clients and maneuvering in confined spaces. In addition, the candidate should be able to lift and carry a minimum of 35% of his or her own body weight.  Also, the candidate should be able to sit, bend, reach and/or walk and stand for most of the day. 

 Intellectual-Conceptual, Integrative, and Quantitative Abilities: These abilities include measurement, calculation, reasoning, analysis, and synthesis. Problem solving, the critical skill demanded of nurses, requires all of these intellectual abilities. In addition, the candidate should be able to comprehend three-dimensional relationships and to understand the spatial relationships of structures. 

 Behavioral and Social Attributes: A candidate must possess the emotional health required for full utilization of his or her intellectual abilities, the exercise of good judgment, the prompt completion of all responsibilities attendant to the care of patients, and the development of mature, sensitive, and effective relationships with patients. Candidates must be able to tolerate physically taxing workloads and function effectively under stress for extended periods of time during a clinical day. The candidate must be able to adapt to noisy, stressful situations and rapidly changing environments, to display flexibility, and to learn to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in the clinical problems of many patients.  

 The citations for these guidelines are as follows: 

Section 504 of the 1973 Vocational Rehabilitation Act and 42 U.S.C.  12101 et seq., the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) 

Bower, D., Line, L., & Denega, D. (1988). Evaluation instruments in nursing (pp. 71). New York: National League for Nursing 

Revised 5/2023