An ideal choice for anyone who wants to gain a professional edge in the world of nursing today, the latest edition of this popular book introduces you to the issues and trends you're likely to encounter in any practice setting. Each stand-alone chapter introduces and explores a specific topic, enabling them to be read in any order. You'll find insightful discussions of professionalization in nursing, standards and scope of practice, socialization and nursing theories surrounding the profession, critical thinking, research and evidence-based practice, the health care delivery system, and professional associations and political action facing nurses. Additionally, thought provoking questions, practical strategies, real-life scenarios, self-assessments, and personal viewpoints and interviews help you extend and apply the ideas presented.

Key Features

Critical Thinking Challenges and self-development activities help you develop your applied knowledge skills, guide your professional socialization initiatives, and envision your personal philosophy of nursing.

Case studies identify the professional behaviors demonstrated, in a column adjacent to that behavior mentioned in the text.

Interviews with established and respected professional nurses offer their perspectives on current issues facing the nursing profession today.

Evidence-Based Practice Notes offer descriptions of relevant studies to show the importance of evidence-based practice and insights that nursing research provides.

News Notes compile excerpts from general press resources to illustrate public perceptions of nurses and the nursing profession.

Where appropriate, historical notes supplement and enhance chapter content.

New to this Edition

Updated content throughout includes discussions on collective bargaining, the status of the Nursing Doctorate Degree, the faculty shortage, nursing theorists, evidence-based practice, critical thinking, spirituality and caring, and death and dying.

Additional content has been added to this edition on Aiken studies, the impact of computerized records, alternative/complementary care, Bloom's taxonomy to domains of learning, crisis intervention, adult teaching learning principles, delegation and stress, and the Patient Self-Determination Act.

Cultural Consideration Challenges weave a common thread of cultural diversity throughout the book for sensitive patient care.

Additional clinical examples throughout help improve your understanding of concepts.

Bolded key terms integrated into the narrative of every chapter familiarize you with terminology presented in the context of the discussion.

A revised glossary includes additional words and phrases beyond the key terms in each chapter, to improve your general understanding.