Curriculum Design the Course I

Curriculum Design

The course I participated in was provided by my hospital and was designed to retrain nurses on a new IV insertion technique utilizing ultrasound. The goal of the course was to teach the nursing staff a means of inserting lines into very young or very old patients who tended to have more fragile or small veins. The course was for one week in two hour increments. After we completed the course we became certified in ultrasonography assisted peripheral line placement.

The curriculum was designed to educate nurses first on all the necessary technology and then on the procedure itself. The first few chapters of the curriculum described the ultrasound machine used and how to adjust the settings. The next chapter covered the type of anesthesia used for the insertion and how that must be administered. Next, it went over the types of insertion kits used and the necessary protocols for those insertion kits. This part of the curriculum was in block form and felt like an information overload. In fact, I remember on the second night I actually brought the material home and studied it further to make certain I remembered everything for the quiz on the following day. The next two chapters were completely action oriented, going over all the hospital's steps and procedures to follow when using this technique. This part was much easier to follow, but still a great deal of facts to remember. There were certainly many more steps involved in this process than the tradition method, but I recalled studies from the earlier chapters that showed it is much easier on the patient, so I can see why it was being implemented (Overton, 2005). The final two days of the training were hands on practice using IV dolls. This was by far the most useful day of the training and the part that was the simplest for me to remember. By the end of this portion, I had gained confidence in the processes and the procedure and could remember all the requirements.

The learning outcome of the course was to educate nurses on the new protocols and technology to complete this procedure on difficult patients. I feel that the curriculum attended very well to these goals. It was always on task and efficient in its training. I'm guessing that it was so efficient because it was through the hospital to train the staff and they did not want to waste time.

After the training I was certified and expected to use this technique on difficult patients. The only lacking competency was using this technique on children. I had not had any previous experience of inserting lines into children and was unaware of protocols or strategies to ease the child's nervousness. This was addressed by more senior nurses in the pediatric ward who would remain in the room and assist me with the children. After a few children, I understood the techniques.