Department of Nursing

About Us

Vision

To prepare nursing professionals accountable, competent, and committed to improving the quality of life of the Puerto Rican and international society.

Mission

Prepare highly qualified Nursing professionals who participate in health promotion and maintenance, prevention, and management of illness, rehabilitation, and end of life care to a diverse society at all levels of healthcare delivery and contribute to health care public policies.

End of Program Student Learning Outcomes 

At the end of the program, the student:

1. Apply knowledge and skills of nursing sciences and other disciplines while caring for the person-client-patient system as it pertains to promotion and maintenance of health, prevention, management and rehabilitation of illness, and end of life care.

2. Demonstrate leadership, communication, and interpersonal relationships competencies when managing care in a collaborative effort with the person-client-patient system.

3. Provide and promote safe, and quality care that will continually allow the person-client-patient system to progress toward higher levels of wellness as they adapt to changes.

4. Integrate critical thinking, professional judgment, values, and ethical/legal principles within general nursing practice.

5. Act as an evolving scholar demonstrating continuous professional development, using creative thinking, technology, and evidence-based, as a foundation for decision making and problem solving.

6. Incorporates professional nursing roles while providing holistic, competent, and culturally sensitive nursing care in multiple settings.

Historic background

This program became the first one to be instituted within the Public University System of Puerto Rico. In its first year, the program was aligned as a division under the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Biology. By 1965, in compliance with Certification 65-66-104 of the University Board, the NEU was established under the direction of Dr. Josefina Torres Torres. The Council of Higher Education and the National League for Nursing accredited the ADN program in 1967.

In 1968, the faculty of Nursing agreed to review the original program proposal to establish a generic BSN program separated from the ADN program. This effort’s outcome was establishing the generic baccalaureate program in 1970. The program was then approved by the UPRM Academic Senate (Certification 70-9) and given a provisional accreditation by the Council of Higher Education in 1969-70 (Certification 68 and 68 A). In 1975-76, the program was awarded full accreditation by the Council of Higher Education (Certification 8) and reaccredited in 1982. In that same year, the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC) accredited the BSN program for the first time, and there on continuously until 2013, accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN).