This fully updated and expanded edition of Saving Lives highlights the essential roles nurses play in contemporary health care and how this role is marginalized by contemporary culture. Through engaging prose and examples drawn from television, advertising, and news coverage, the authors detail the media's role in reinforcing stereotypes that fuel the nursing shortage and devalue a highly educated sector of the contemporary workforce. Perhaps most important, the authors provide a wealth of ideas to help reinvigorate the nursing field and correct this imbalance.
The Truth About Nursing is a roadmap for aspiring nurses. Written by a new nurse, this book outlines in depth the educational requirements for the profession as well as the practicalities of getting started in the field. It includes numerous stories and lessons learned from on the job, from the hospital and the nursing home to the psyche, showing readers what nursing is really like.
The fifth edition of Nursing Ethics has been revised to reflect the most current issues in healthcare ethics including new cases, laws, and policies. The text continues to be divided into three sections: Foundational Theories, Concepts and Professional Issues; Moving Into Ethics Across the Lifespan; and Ethics Related to Special Issues focused on specific populations and nursing roles.
Winner of the 2013 Evergreen Book Award Bronze Medal for Health and Wellness The joys, fears, intimacies, and transcendent moments shared by a nurse and her patients "The Heart's Truth should be required reading at every nursing school in the country. It offers a powerful and moving portrait of what it means to be a nurse. In writing that is of the highest quality, the reader is swept up in the drama of nursing and the compassion with which it is perfused."--Richard Selzer, surgeon and author "Davis has perfectly captured the broader arc of movement from awkward, insecure novice to competent, often morally exhausted, clinician, with a poet's touch."--Amy M. Haddad, PhD "In her breathtaking collection of essays, Cortney Davis reveals 'the details of flesh' that comprise the core of a nurse's experience. Writing with the power, precision and careful observation of a seasoned clinician and the sensitivity of a poet, Davis guides the reader along the challenging path of her career."-- Richard Berlin, poet and physician "Cortney Davis has an uncanny ability to give voice to the profound act of everyday nursing and its power in transforming the lives of people. Somehow, she sees the shadows and ghosts that fill our bodies and souls and makes sense of them, showing us that the divide between patient and provider is an artificial one that can get in the way of true understanding. The Heart's Truth reminds us of the power of reflection and narrative and challenges us to reclaim these ways of knowing in the interest of healing our patients--and ourselves."--Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Nursing What is it like to be a student nurse washing the feet of a dying patient? To be a newly graduated nurse, in charge of the Intensive Care Unit for the first time, who wonders if her mistake might have cost a life? Or to be an experienced nurse who, by her presence and care, holds a patient to this world? Poet and nurse practitioner Cortney Davis answers these questions by examining her own experiences and through them reveals a glimpse into the minds and hearts of those who care for us when we are at our most vulnerable. The Heart's Truth offers the joys, frustrations, fears, and miraculous moments that nurses, new and experienced, face every day. In these finely wrought essays, Davis traces her twin paths, nursing and writing, inviting readers to share what she discovers along the way--lessons not only about the human body but also about the human soul. Rich, intimate, and never shrinking from the realities of illness, the grace of healing, or the wonder of words, The Heart's Truth will inspire student caregivers, intrigue readers, and affirm those who have long worked in nursing, a profession that Davis calls "odd, mysterious, humbling, addicting, and often transcendent."
This unique text uses hands-on examples and learning exercises to help you apply critical ethical principles to specific nursing challenges while addressing a range of patient populations and settings.
Winner of the 2008 AJN Book of the Year Award! Named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2008 byChoice! "This well written and well edited book fills a unique gap....[one of the] precious few [books] that focus on science or medicine and [one of] even fewer that cover the history of nursing."(Three Stars)--Doody's Book Review Service While there have been many research texts in the nursing literature, and nursing history is both taught in courses and of popular interest to practicing nurses, there has never been a hands-on text that describes the process of doing historical research in nursing. This book, contributed by well-known and respected nurse historians, provides the necessary direction, guidance, and examples needed to conduct historical research. It covers such topics as historiography, biographical research, using artifacts in historical research, doing archival and other data searches, doing international historical research, and locating funding sources for historical research. Case studies will be used throughout to illustrate various methods and describe how, why, when, and where historical research is used in nursing. Features of this edition: Provides direction and tools for conducting historical research Describes types of research, including biographical and oral histories Covers frameworks used to study historical events, such as social, political, feminist, intellectual, and cultural Addresses contemporary issues such as preserving and storing digitalized and tape-recorded data and obtaining institutional review board (IRB) approval for research, and addressing ethical and legal issues in historical research Includes case studies that provide a "how-to" guide to conducting research
This is the first practical guide for nurses on how to incorporate the knowledge, skills, and tools of Strength-Based Nursing Care (SBC) into everyday practice. The text, based on a model developed by the McGill University Nursing Program, signifies a paradigm shift from a deficit-based model to one that focuses on individual, family, and community strengths as a cornerstone of effective nursing care. The book develops the theoretical foundations underlying SBC, promotes the acquisition of fundamental skills needed for SBC practice, and offers specific strategies, techniques, and tools for identifying strengths and harnessing them to facilitate healing and health. The testimony of 46 nurses demonstrates how SBC can be effectively used in multiple settings across the lifespan.
Case Studies in Nursing Ethics presents basic ethical principles and specific guidance for applying these principles in nursing practice through analysis of over 150 actual ethical case study conflicts that have occurred in the practice of nursing. Each case study allows readers to develop their own approaches to the resolution of ethical conflict and to reflect on how the traditions of ethical thought and professional guidelines apply to the situation.
We are on the verge of the nation's worst nursing shortage in history. Dedicated nurses are leaving hospitals in droves, and there are not enough new recruits to the profession to meet demand. Even hospitals that were once very highly regarded for the quality of their nursing care, such as Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, now struggle to fill vacant positions. What happened? Dana Beth Weinberg argues that hospital restructuring in the 1990s is to blame. In their attempts to retain profit margins or even just to stay afloat, hospitals adopted a common set of practices to cut costs and increase revenues. Many strategies squeezed greater productivity out of nurses and other hospital workers. Nurses' workloads increased to the point that even the most skilled nurses questioned whether they could provide minimal, safe care to patients. As hospitals hemorrhaged money, it seemed that no one—not hospital administrators, not doctors—felt they could afford to listen to nurses. Through a careful look at the effects of the restructuring strategies chosen and implemented by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the author examines management's efforts to balance service and survival. By showing the effects of hospital restructuring on nurses' ability to plan, evaluate, and deliver excellent care, Weinberg provides a stinging indictment of standard industry practices that underestimate the contribution nurses make both to hospitals and to patient care.
