Technical Standards Policy

Xavier University College of Nursing is committed to diversity and to attracting and educating students who will make the population of healthcare professionals’ representative of the national population. We provide confidential and specialized disability support and are committed to excellence in accessibility; we encourage students with disabilities to disclose and seek accommodations. 

The technical standards delineated below must be met with or without accommodation.

Students who, after review of the technical standards, determine that they require an accommodation to fully engage in the program, should contact the Xavier University Accessibility and Disability Resources s to confidentially discuss their accommodation needs. Given the clinical nature of the program, additional time may be needed to implement accommodations. Accommodations are never retroactive; therefore, timely requests are essential and encouraged.

Technical (Non-academic) Standards

• Acquire Information: Students must be able to obtain information from demonstrations and experiments in the basic sciences. Students must be able to assess a patient and evaluate findings accurately. These skills require the use of vision, hearing, and touch or the functional equivalent.
• Communication: Students should be able to communicate with patients in order to elicit information, to detect changes in mood and activity, and to establish a therapeutic relationship. Students should be able to communicate via English effectively and sensitively with patients and all members of the healthcare team both in person and in writing.
• Motor: Students should, after a reasonable period of time, possess the capacity to perform a physical assessment and perform nursing skills. Students should be able to execute some motor movements required to provide general care to patients and provide or direct the provision of emergency treatment of patients. Such actions require some coordination of both gross and fine muscular movements balance and equilibrium.
• Intellectual, conceptual, integrative, and quantitative abilities: Students should be able to assimilate detailed and complex information presented in both didactic and clinical coursework, and engage in problem-solving. Candidates are expected to possess the ability to measure, calculate, reason, analyze, synthesize, and transmit information. In addition, students should be able to comprehend three-dimensional relationships and to understand the spatial relationships of structures and to adapt to different learning environments and modalities.
• Behavioral and social abilities: Students should possess the emotional health required for full utilization of their intellectual abilities, the exercise of good judgment, the prompt completion of all responsibility’s attendant to the care of patients, and the development of mature, sensitive, and effective relationships with patients, fellow students, faculty, and staff. Students should be able to tolerate physically taxing workloads and to function effectively under stress. They should be able to adapt to changing environments, to display flexibility, and to learn to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in the clinical problems of many patients. Compassion, integrity, concern for others, interpersonal skills, professionalism, interest, and motivation are all personal qualities that are expected during the education processes.
• Ethics and professionalism: Students should maintain and display ethical and moral behaviors commensurate with the role of a nurse in all interactions with patients, faculty, staff, students, and the public. The student is expected to understand the legal and ethical aspects of the practice of Nursing and function within the law and ethical standards of the nursing profession.