Comparison of philosophy, goals and curriculum of graduate level of nursing education in Iran and other countries

Introduction. With constant changes in health care it is imperative that nursing education programs themselves act as agents of change. Nursing education has the responsibility to produce nursing professionals and expert practitioners to shape the nursing practice not merely respond to changes in the practice environment. It must prepare nurses who can participate as full partners in health care delivery, shaping health policy, removing artificial barriers that limit the profession’s ability and can extend their activity in community. Despite increasing the number of nursing schools and the number of nurses with MS and PhD, unfortunately the quality of nursing care have decreased. This may results from factors like procedures used for selecting students, teaching and evaluation methods and content of nursing curricula. Philosophy of nursing education is to determine content of nursing curricula, procedures used for selecting students, preparing educational environments, students and nurses interactions with their clients, personal life and professional achievement of each student. However philosophy of nursing education in our country is not clear, therefore development in graduate education and occasional and imperfect revising the content of nursing curricula could not solve the problems of practice setting. If we define our philosophy of nursing and our philosophy of nursing education we can build the conceptual framework and goals of undergraduate and graduate programs upon this philosophy. In this study I reviewed the philosophy, mission and goals of nursing education in the world, hoping that it can help us to create a basis for building our philosophy of nursing education. Methods. By searching the internet and reviewing the nursing curricula and philosophy, mission and goals of nursing education I compared graduate nursing education in Iran and other countries, hope that it can help us to create a basis for building our philosophy, mission and goals of nursing education and produce some criteria for determining quality of graduate nursing education. Results. Nursing education programs, especially in graduate level, consist mainly of theoretical lessons, which usually do not relate to each other and do not consider the professional interests of students. Because there is a centralized educational system in our country, most of the universities or educational programs (including nursing programs) do not have a statement of their philosophy, mission and goals. However in other countries most universities and educational programs, have these and they have developed their framework and goals of undergraduate and graduate programs upon these statements. The common themes in these statements are: emphasis on excellence in teaching, research, and quality services by preparing expert nurses for professional practice in clinical, administrational, educational roles and research for participating in body of nursing knowledge. Emphasis on quality in services and worth, dignity of human beings despite their cultural differences. Emphasis that nursing educating must prepare nurses to meet needs of community specially its deprived and vulnerable populations. Other common themes are: nursing is an autonomous and responsible profession that acts based on knowledge, theory and research and its ability to quality services and doing its leadership role depends on developing a disseminating knowledge through nursing curricula. Nursing knowledge is the central core of education in graduate nursing education and this core includes but not limited to the phenomena concerning nursing discipline: person, environment, health and nursing. Conclusion. Nursing education programs, including graduate level, do not have a written and clear philosophy and also do not meet community’s needs. They often result in some unusable thesis and a certification while the students do not acquire enough skill and expertise in a specialized nursing field. It appears that statement of philosophy and mission of these programs may be the first step in the process of correction these programs. In such statements we should take attention to both our professional and cultural values.