History
The Department of Nursing, Fu Jen Catholic University Medical College has always been renowned in nursing circles for its successful combination of rigorous academic standards and a broad-minded, liberal outlook. The Department currently includes three sections: the Undergraduate section (which enrolls 100 students each year), the Masters program (including the Adult Nursing section and Family Nursing sections, with a combined enrollment of 10 – 12 students per year), and the part-time Undergraduate program for mature students who are in work (40 students per year). Since the Department was first established in 1980, there have been a total of 16 graduating classes; these alumni can now be found working in nursing and related fields throughout Taiwan. The Master’s program and part-time Undergraduate program already employ a problem-based learning (PBL) approach, and in 2007 the Department began to introduce PBL for the regular Undergraduate program as well.
In 2006, the Department established collaborative partnerships with the College of Nursing of Old Dominion University in Virginia and the University of Bedfordshire in the U.K. It is anticipated that, using remote learning, the three universities will be able to share faculty members and establish mutual recognition of credits, and that the collaboration between the universities will give the Department’s graduates a wider range of employment options after completing their studies, while at the same time helping students to develop an international outlook. The Department has also been working to strengthen the mechanisms whereby students can participate in voluntary service, helping to provide care in remote mountain districts, isolated offshore islands, among disadvantaged groups, and in developing countries, in line with the Department’s guiding principles of “Care, Concern, Compassion.”