This book attempts to correct the dearth of nursing-relevant information about religions. The information in the book can help nurses to avoid being negligent to patients whose religiosity overtly and covertly influences their responses to health-related challenges and transitions. The book redresses the damage done by the prevailing discourse in the nursing literature that disparages religion in favor of a generic spirituality. It is divided into two parts. Part I discusses religion and nursing care, and explores the need for nurses to offer religious “interventions” at the bedside, provides information about how to talk with patients about religion and information about how to assess religiosity, addresses how nurses can support overt rituals, and offers legal and ethical perspectives in integrating this information in clinical care. The last chapter in this section reflects on the impact of a nurse’s religiosity on nursing practice. Several federal laws and most states have “conscience clauses”, which allow a nurse to refuse to participate for religious reasons in an abortion, sterilization, and often other procedures. Section II is the focal point of the book since it features contributions from 22 religionists who are not only experts about a faith tradition but also adherents of it. The religious groups covered in this section include Anabaptist-descended groups, Anglicans and Episcopalians, Baptists, Christian scientists, Latter-Day Saints, Lutherans and Methodists, Orthodox Christians, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Jehovah’s witnesses, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and atheists.

This book offers leadership lessons for aspiring nurse leaders from luminaries in business, medicine, philanthropy, government, academia, research, and health care. It offers practical advice, lessons learned, and testimonials as to how nurses can prepare themselves for leadership, which in turn, will help them to provide exceptional patient care. As per the report of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the heightened roles of the professional nurse allow nurses of all practices to more fully develop their leadership skills. Nurse leaders are moving the interprofessional collaboration agenda forward by serving in key leadership positions. A nurse leader who led public research in the Kent State University and Bowling Green State University challenged the common perception that successful leaders are born, complete with the requisite temperament and talents. Nurses who play leadership roles can fill in research on health care policy formulation and implementation that will change the course of health care payment, delivery, and quality. The book discusses nurse research leadership from an economist’s perspective, hiring leaders to understand leadership, and nursing leadership lessons from an association executive’s perspective, from a physician’s chief executive officer’s perspective, from a nursing friend’s perspective and from a collaborative team’s perspective. The book also highlights nursing leadership’s contributions to safety and quality, how leadership can usher in health reforms and achieve better health for all people, and advancing the cause of transformational nurse leadership.

This book is offered to hospice and palliative care nurses to assist their preparation for taking the Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN^®) certification examination. Interest in demonstrating expertise through certification as a hospice and palliative care nurse has continually grown, as recognition of one's expertise brings not only professional satisfaction but also personal pride. Since this text is a practice and certification review for hospice and palliative care nurses preparing for the CHPN certification examination, the book follows the test outline offered by the Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center. In seven sections, the book offers tips on test-taking, an outline of the CHPN certification examination, a review of life-limiting conditions in adult patients, a review of pain and symptom management, a review of education and advocacy in patient and family care, a review of practice issues, and a full-length practice test with answers and rationales. It also presents practice questions at the end of the chapters. This must-have study guide for nurses seeking to obtain CHPN status provides state-of-the-art information about all aspects of this specialty. It features 300 carefully selected Q&As that offer a detailed rationale for each question, along with tips and strategies to promote exam mastery and frequently asked questions about the exam. Brief topical reviews address hospice and palliative care nursing practice in all of its dimensions, including physical, spiritual, and psychosocial. The resource highlights information that forms the basis of end-of-life care, such as communication and family-centered care. Additionally, the book covers high-level skills used by hospice and palliative care nurses, such as drug and dosage conversion and the use of infusion therapy.

Health care delivery is complex and scientifically grounded, and requires its practitioners to possess considerable knowledge and expertise. This book guides the reader through a conceptual framework for building effective patient relationships. Based on concepts of mindfulness, it provides a kind of mental scaffolding or operating platform on which to build thoughts, perspectives, and skills that help the busy clinician to achieve inner composure, attain greater self-awareness, and develop critical interpersonal skills that result in satisfying and compassionate patient care. In the first section of the book, mindfulness principles are embedded in discussions of the critical elements of interpersonal effectiveness, such as hope, empathy, and listening. The second section discusses how to navigate professional communication challenges. The third section provides chapters in which mindfulness principles are applied to challenging clinical situations. The fourth section describes effective approaches with challenging populations. Together, the applications in third and fourth sections give the reader concrete examples of mindfulness in action. The scenarios depicted throughout the book involve practitioners primarily from medicine and nursing. Nurses and physicians, trainees, social workers, and others are also presented in examples. However, with slight modifications, the scenarios are applicable across disciplines. Although the roles of nurses, social workers, and physicians certainly vary, the fundamental principles for establishing effective patient-provider encounters remain constant. And although the primary aim of the book is to promote mindfulness as a powerful method of enhancing patient-provider communication, the secondary aim is to promote mindfulness as a means of enhancing cross-disciplinary understanding.

This book is a response that fosters education, practice development, and professionalism. The bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) is the essential educational foundation to give nurses the knowledge to improve health outcomes and provide the highest quality care. It provides the essentials of nursing theory and the importance of having a philosophy of nursing that informs our professional role. The book is written to assist with the transition from the role of the LPN to the baccalaureate-prepared registered nurse (RN). Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) who enter a university to advance their education through seeking a baccalaureate of nursing degree often find the experience of socializing into the new professional role challenging. The book analyzes the change process, discusses Benner’s stages of clinical competence, examines the philosophy of nursing and describes stress reduction measures. The terms leadership and management are described, and the role of the baccalaureate-prepared nurse as leader and manager is explored. Finally the book talks about the Skill Competencies required for the Baccalaureate-Prepared Nurse-electronic health records (EHRs); the Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) Movement; Simulated E-Health Delivery System (SEEDS) and Nursing Informatics Education Model (NIEM). The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) program was created in 2005 by an expert panel of nursing educators with the aim of preparing future nurses to continuously advance the quality and safety of the health care system in which they practice. The group developed six core competencies to be incorporated into nursing curricula: client-centered care; teamwork and collaboration; evidence-based practice; quality improvement; safety; and informatics.

Growing numbers of nurses are working in long-term care and playing a major role in the provision of long-term care services. This book provides an overview of the unique aspects of long-term care with a specific focus on nurses working in nursing home and assisted living settings. It offers a review of the unique aspects and settings for long-term care, special needs of the population served, and clinical challenges. The book is divided into five parts. The first part provides the basics of long-term care with chapters covering nursing responsibilities, regulations, and cultural change. The nursing process is discussed in Part II, which focuses on the minimum data set (MDS), assessment needs beyond the MDS, assessment skills, creative care plans, person-centered care and family care. The challenges involved in clinical settings such as promotion of medication safety, and reduction of medication errors and common risks are dealt with in the third section. As a significant number of individuals who need long-term care services have cognitive impairment, Section IV is devoted to the care of residents with dementias. Management skills, legal risks, and issues pertaining to surveys are presented in Section V. In recognition of the stresses that can arise in long-term care nursing, a chapter is dedicated to the important topic of self-care.

This book is designed to help nurses and other health professionals develop compelling proposals for PhD dissertations; National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants, fellowships, and career development awards; and proposals for education, translation, evidence-based practice, and demonstration projects, including those for the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) capstone project. It takes readers through all the parts of developing a proposal, selecting a problem; showing the significance of the problem; describing the work already done on the problem and the need for further work on the problem or its solution; describing their preliminary work, when relevant; and detailing their design and methods. Then, the book offers innovative ideas for writing a dissertation proposal or a proposal for a DNP project or other type of evidence-based practice project. In describing proposals for NIH funding, the book gives detailed instructions on what content to include and how to organize the Specific Aims section and provides similar details on writing the Significance, Innovation, and Approach sections. Finally, it offers guidance in composing a title and abstract, preparing the additional materials needed for a proposal, and developing a budget. It also addresses the processes of writing proposals, submitting a grant proposal, the review, and a possible resubmission.

This book guides nurses step by step through all aspects of program development. With a major focus on planning for sequential studies and describing potential pathways of a research trajectory, the book addresses options and timing of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method research designs, along with time-management strategies. It first presents various definitions of a research program along with metaphors used to describe research trajectories and introduces author’s own program of research on postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. The tools needed to develop a valuable program of research are described, which include types of successful minds and personality traits needed to achieve the goal. The book then focuses on providing researchers with illustrations from the sequence of studies in author’s own research program on postpartum mood and anxiety disorders and discusses some of the options other than the usual quantitative research methods to expand the paths that researchers have available to them. The programs of research of other nurse researchers are also included in the book. These programs focus on pediatric oncology, marginalized groups, suffering, fatigue, and adult oncology. If a program of research is to provide new discoveries for evidence-based practice, dissemination of its findings is a critical step. The book finally focuses on the challenges of writing and publishing the studies in the research program.

Since its recognition as a subspecialty in 2005, the neurocritical care community has significantly grown. An increasing number of hospitals across the United States provide subspecialized neurocritical care, and fellowship-trained neurointensivists are in demand more than ever. This book is intended to be a comprehensive study guide and self-assessment tool for candidates sitting for both initial certification and recertification in neurocritical care. In addition, trainees taking the surgical or medicine critical care boards will also find it useful as it covers the neurocritical care component of their board curriculums. The book is an easy-to-read, concise yet comprehensive, and portable learning resource not only for board preparation, but also for medical students, residents, and fellows rotating in the neurocritical care unit. Nurses, advance practice providers, and non-neurointensivist physicians who participate in the care of neurocritical care patients will also find this book to be an easy guide to the management of many frequently encountered issues, with case examples and imaging to further guide their education. The chapters are named and arranged in a similar format to the board curriculum to allow for easy review and organization when studying for the boards. The question-and-answer (Q&A) format allows the reader to perform thorough self-assessment prior to taking the exam. The answers are detailed and cover the majority of the board syllabus with updated references for additional reading. The book covers the key topics pertinent to (and found on) neurocritical care boards, and is organized according to the exam core curriculum outline. The questions address both neuroscience critical care (general neurology, neurotrauma, neurovascular and neurosurgical problems) and general critical care topics (systems trauma, cardiovascular, infectious disease, pulmonary and renal issues, and hemodynamic monitoring).

Leading as a nursing dean or director is an honor and a privilege. It is also an intense experience that demands a full investment of one’s time, energy, wisdom, wit, and patience on a daily basis. Evidence suggests that serving as the chief nursing officer in an academic setting can be an overwhelming, stressful, and lonely experience. This book serves as a primer and all-purpose guide for nurses who are either new to academic leadership or aspire to academic leadership roles. It provides fundamental information in an engaging and conversational manner, with real-life examples that help the reader to understand and embrace the multifaceted opportunities and challenges of “deaning” and directing. The target audience is novice academic nursing leaders: deans, associate deans, assistant deans, chairs, and directors of nursing programs, departments, and schools. Section I introduces readers to selected aspects of the nursing dean/director role, including the processes of searching for and stepping into a position; day-to-day, for-profit, and interim deaning scenarios; and, finally, the process of stepping up from a dean or director position. Section II covers general responsibilities of nursing deans and directors, including enrollment management, student success, recruitment and retention, academic policies and programs, fundraising, stakeholder engagement, budgeting, strategic planning, clinical enterprises and faculty practice, and executive leadership. The book concludes with a section that covers work–life integration and self-care for nursing deans and directors.