Bachelor of Health Care | Registered Nurse | full-time

The Bachelor of Health Care, Registered Nurse programme develops competent and highly skilled nurses with excellent knowledge of encountering, supervising and caring for people with diverse health issues.

During your studies, you will master the required concepts, methods and skills to enable the critical assessment and decision-making in changing and unpredictable nursing situations. You will also learn how to oversee professional work and projects, and how to work in expert jobs within the nursing field. Moreover, you will be capable of assessing your skills, and the skills and development of other people and teams. You will confidently be able to apply, assess and analyse your nursing skills in different situations.

Similarly, you will be able to coordinate the work and work independently as a nursing expert in your home country and abroad. With our programme, you will be prepared for lifelong learning and have the ability to communicate verbally and in written form with different audiences in and outside the field of nursing.

Our Registered Nurse programme offers a multi-professional learning environment in modern facilities with a simulation centre, clinical skill laboratories and health technology. The studies are implemented in a blended manner combining personal tutoring, e-learning, and clinical nursing practices aimed at deepening your multi-professional evidence-based care.

Content of studies

The degree studies are full-time studies and attendance is required in major parts of the courses. The study methods include contact lessons, distance and independent studies, e-learning, internships, and RDI work. Internship periods are full-time studies and attendance is required. To confirm your internship placements, you are required to be active in placements search, and may be required to travel outside Kuopio municipality.

We use versatile methods in our education, such as skills workshops and simulations. The guiding principles in nursing education are intercourse between theory and practice, contact lessons and independent studying both by oneself and in teams as well as learning in different expert cultures. The student takes an active role in the studies.

During the first year of your studies, you will learn to observe a human being as a psychophysical entity, and you will learn the basics of nursing. You will learn to use the nursing values and principles to enhance health and functional ability as well as in nursing medical patients.

During the second year, you will learn to use evidence-based information in the medication of the most common diseases in Perioperative nursing, Pediatric and Family nursing and Mental Health and Substance Abuse nursing fields. After the theoretical studies, you will have internship periods, where you will learn to apply and expand your nursing knowledge in those fields.

During the third year, you can apply and analyze information on gerontological nursing and home care services and, also, implement health promotion, based on the clients’ needs. You will be able to assess the development needs in nursing as well as plan and implement solutions to renew and develop nursing. You will also be able to apply the RDI skills you obtained during your studies when planning and writing your thesis.

During the final year of your studies, you will be able to apply, assess and analyze your nursing skills in different fields, coordinate your work and work independently as a nursing expert in an international environment. You will have the ability to communicate both verbally and in writing with different audiences in and outside the field of nursing.

The content of nursing studies starts with becoming familiar with nursing and proceeds to applying the nursing skills in different patient work situations, for example, with patients of different ages and with different diseases. Your skills are developed and deepened during the study process.