Prerequisites for admission.

To access the programme, students are required to pass a selection test prepared by the Ministry of Education, aimed at assessing a suitable personal background of the student. When submitting the application to the aforesaid competition, the following documents are required: 1) secondary high-school diploma or other qualification obtained abroad and deemed suitable; 2) one of the following qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree conferring the right to exercise one of the healthcare professions included in Class 1 of the degrees in nursing and midwifery professions;


- University three-year degree conferring the right to exercise one of the healthcare professions included in Class 1 of the degrees in nursing and midwifery professions;


- study qualifications conferring the right to exercise one of the healthcare professions included in Class 1 of the Master’s degree in nursing and midwifery sciences;

The knowledge required for the admission is assessed by means of an entry test, prepared according to the ministerial instructions contained in the Ministerial Decree no. 612 of 15 July 2013, setting the topics and the number of the questions.
If needed, the Degree Programme may integrate any training deficiencies of the student, resulting from the entry test, through in-depth disciplinary or interdisciplinary programmes, coordinated by the professor of the subject being explored. Each professor will use methods independently identified to fill the gaps detected in the student’s background.
Once the lessons of the first year start and strictly before the internship begins, students shall attend and complete the FAD SicurMoRe course on health and safety.

Skills associated with the function

Researcher and technician with a university degree in medical sciences
Graduates in Nursing and Midwifery Sciences have the grounds to develop at high level, and in different contexts, the ability to analyse, read the issues, plan, design and manage complex healthcare services (decree 2 April 2001, Class of the specialist degrees in Nursing and Midwifery Sciences). In addition, master graduates have the ability to manage the human and manufacturing resources (lead teams and work processes).

Function in a work context

Researcher and technician with a university degree in medical sciences
Graduates may carry out professional roles and relevant functions within the healthcare services fields with managerial functions and in healthcare with educational and research functions.
The Healthcare Service includes a range of positions (and skills) for master graduate nurses: from the direction of the company service of technical and rehabilitation nursing care, to the coordination of a department or complex unit, or team, to the coordination of personnel updating and permanent training, to the role of trainer, professor, or tutor.

Educational goals

Master graduates’ specific objectives are to explore all distinctive fields of the various subjects belonging to nursery and midwifery sciences (learning areas), especially gaining advanced knowledge and skills 1) in their independent development of research activities, 2) in pedagogical and training skills, and 3) in their coordination and management organisation skills.

The programme is designed to provide students with the training objectives defined as follows:

LEARNING AREA: METHODS, DESIGN AND REALISATION OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
- understand, through epidemiological models, the healthcare needs of the community and the social and cultural factors affecting them for the purpose of planning the services;
- carry out a proper bibliographical research and perform a critical reading of scientific articles;
- be able to interpret the research results based on the improvement of the healthcare quality and the management of priority issues relating to the health of the community;
- apply the methodological principles of scientific research to healthcare, organisation of relevant services, and research;
- analyse the main methodological approaches relating to the classification of relevant phenomena of interest;
- design and implement innovative healthcare models based on research results for the prevention and management of health priority issues of the community;
- supervise the relevant healthcare and provide professional counselling, using information of proven scientific evidence, a global approach tailored to the various needs of the users, by applying the theoretical models and promoting the confrontation with multiple professionals;
- identify specific issues and areas of research in the clinical, organisational, and training field;
- verify the application of the research results based on the constant improvement of the healthcare quality;
- develop research and teaching on specific fields of the subject relevant to the professional role and of the healthcare

LEARNING AREA: PEDAGOGICAL AND EDUCATIONAL
- explore and develop the historical and philosophical analysis of the healthcare thought;
- explore the disciplinary theoretical principles, in order to critically analyse them, prepare interpretation models, address the research and the relevant healthcare activity;
- explore and rework the principles and techniques of the helping relationship and leading groups;
- explore the knowledge of how social and cultural, and biopsychic factors affect the human behaviour as the ground for a better understanding of self and others;
- help design basic training paths, specialising and featuring a constant training, relevant to the needs of the recipients and related to the health issues and services;
- develop the nursing or paediatric/midwifery nursing disciplinary teaching;
- develop the the historical and philosophical analysis of the nursing or paediatric/midwifery nursing healthcare thought;
- apply the fundamental concepts of the ethical and deontological values of the existing relationship among the individual, the illness, the healthcare institutions and the operators, in order to develop the skills of ethical judgement and assumption of responsibility;
- experiment strategies and interventions addressed to the relational complexity of the healthcare relating to the specific professional role and the processes of health education;
- explore the learning from experience models to guide the vocational training processes;
- explore the application of assessment models and tools of the learning processes, of the teaching effectiveness and of the impact of training on services;
- based on the specific operating context, apply formal and tutorial teaching methodologies;
- jointly with other professionals, design and carry out educational actions and activities supporting the individual and the community for the self-care and the control of risk factors and health issues;

LEARNING AREA: COORDINATION AND MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION
- analyse the evolution and the changes of healthcare systems;
- explore the strategies for managing the personnel and systems for assessing the work loads;
- explore the systems of professional assessment and accreditation;
- based on the analysis of the health issues and the service offer, build a system of healthcare standards and professional expertise;
- explore the decision-making process for effectively solve healthcare and organisational issues;
- design and implement organisation models of nursing or midwifery services within healthcare services; - design and coordinate diversified organisational and management actions, aimed at developing an effective and efficient professional action;
- negotiate, select, allocate the resources of technical staff relating to the standards of professional expertise and to work loads of the specific healthcare areas;
- assess the personnel’s skills to improve their professional potentials;
- help define a systematic plan for constant quality improvement and set shared standards and indicators for the assessment of the relevant healthcare;
- manage work groups and strategies to encourage multi-professional and organisational integration processes.

Communication skills

Master graduates in Nursery and Midwifery Sciences shall be able to:
- prove valid relational and decision-making skills
- fully set their work within wider contexts, and clearly motivate their choices based on the known basics, thanks to their basic technical and scientific knowledge.
- transfer their knowledge, exploiting the presentation methodologies and technologies and adapting the communication mode to the person they speak with;
- cooperate in an effective manner to the activities of homogeneous and heterogeneous work groups;
- implement tools and techniques of interpersonal and mediated communication, as well as information management, including the procedures for managing and processing digital information;
- effectively communicate in a written and oral form, also in international contexts by exploiting the knowledge of the English language.
The internship activity, which features a great variance of interactive situations, is the perfect context for gaining such skills, that will be assessed by means of an oral interview. Communication skills are also developed during the presentation of the original paper for the final examination.

Making Judgements

Master graduates in Nursery and Midwifery Sciences:
- know and are able to apply the method for nursery/midwifery research and of the main techniques for detecting, treating, and analysing the information for healthcare research;
- are able to analyse and read the issues existing in healthcare and social contexts, keeping a high level of independent judgement, by applying the healthcare research method, or by means of an empirical assessment of their initial hypotheses;

The independent judgement ability is mainly developed through seminars, the preparation of papers, especially in nursing-midwifery-epidemiologic and economics-legal-organisational disciplinary fields and within specific training activities. In such teaching activities, importance will be given to the role played by the methodologies of nursing and midwifery sciences, for an analytical and reasoned reading of the changes in healthcare occurred in certain territories and organisations. A similar approach will be used for programming and carrying out integrating and internship activities, including the activity for the final examination (degree thesis), carried out in collaboration with the tutoring professor.
The independent judgement is verified by assessing the teachings of the individual study plan and the degree of working autonomy and ability - even in a team - during the activity assigned in the student’s study plan and internship. It is also assessed in the context of the student’s commitment dedicated to the independent preparation of the written paper, required to take the final examination. It will be an oral interview.

Learning skills

Thanks to their training path carried out, master graduates in Nursery and Midwifery Sciences shall be able to:
- effectively deal with the changing working issues relating to technological, scientific and organisational innovation in the field of healthcare and assistance in particular, in line with the changes of the healthcare/welfare and economic system
- gain a strong awareness in designing, planning and managing the issues relating to risk management in healthcare and the continuous development of health issues
- possess the cognitive tools and the orientation abilities required for keeping their knowledge up to date, thanks to the sound background of scientific principles of their own professional activities
More specifically, the teachings of the master degree use methods such as the analysis and resolution of different and complex issues, the integration of the various subjects and the group discussion, which help gain skills relating to learning and adaptation.
The internship activity, carried out in specifically qualified environments, as well as the in-depth and methodologically correct preparation of the degree thesis, which requires students to measure, understand and process in an original way new information and issues, even if they have not been dealt with in the classroom, represent other tools that are useful for exploring the cognitive and relational skills.