This chapter focuses on women, who are HIV positive, from a global perspective. It illustrates more easily what makes groups of people, and in this case women, vulnerable and then consider vulnerability from a global health (GH) perspective using the chronic illness, HIV. The chapter presents some examples of situations that make women vulnerable to HIV and, once infected, vulnerable for life, and use a case-based approach to highlight women as a vulnerable population. It also focuses on the real ethical issues that occurred with each case, which one anticipate will help prepare the new GH nurse for practice in the global environment. The chapter demonstrates by using an exemplar of HIV-positive women, vulnerable populations exist both within and outside the United States. Reasons for vulnerability may include stigma, victimization, mental illness, migration, limited access to needed health care or food, or substance use.

This chapter demonstrates how social work ethics apply to ethical and legal decision making in forensic social work practice. It discusses the context of social work practice in legal systems. The chapter also details the basic structures of the United States (U.S.) civil and criminal legal systems. It lays the foundation for the criminal and civil court processes in the United States and introduces basic terminology and a description of associated activities and progression through these systems. The chapter focuses on providing an introductory, and overarching, picture of both civil and criminal law in the U.S. and introduces the roles social workers play in these systems. It focuses on the ETHICA model of ethical decision making as a resource and tool that can be used to help forensic social workers process difficult and complex situations across multiple systems.

This chapter explains the theoretical basis for motivational interviewing (MI). It reviews the empirical evidence for the use of MI with diverse populations in forensic settings. MI involves attention to the language of change, and is designed to strengthen personal motivation and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion. It is now internationally recognized as an evidence-based practice intervention for alcohol and drug problems. MI involves an underlying spirit made up of partnership, acceptance, compassion, and evocation. The chapter discusses four key processes involved in MI: engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning. It also describes five key communication microskills used throughout MI: asking open-ended questions, providing affirmations, offering summarizing statements, providing information and advice with permission, and reflective statements.

In this chapter, the author began working in international medical humanitarian aid, with an organization called Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders (MSF). Pediatrics and Pediatric Intensive Care are where the author’s nursing career had started. With assignments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, and South Sudan, the author have provided care for people who have been displaced due to conflict, victims of war trauma, women with high-risk pregnancies, malnourished and critically ill children, and people with HIV and tuberculosis, and responded to outbreaks of preventable illnesses such as measles and cholera. MSF opened the Sibut project, with a focus on providing care for young children and women of child-bearing age. The security system includes daily contact with all of the village leaders in Sibut, including the Catholic priests, the imams at the Muslim mosque, the village elders, and the militia leaders.

The author worked in a public health research lab, after graduation from college. She liked the flexibility of nursing and the promise to always have a job. She was fascinated by the intricacy of the mind-body intersection and how horribly wrong things could get with seemingly small perturbations. She felt that nursing school discouraged any consideration of a career in psychiatric nursing, as a mentor shared a comment by one of her advisors years ago that “only the bad nurses go into psychiatry”. A common occurrence was the admission of patients with psychiatric needs in addition to medical comorbidities. She cared for patients who had anxiety as a consequence of hospitalization, depression due to chronic illness, persons suffering from acute delirium, as well as someone with dementia secondary to HIV. Later she accepted a job at a local community health center that serves a predominance of Latino immigrants.

This chapter explains the seminal Institute of Medicine (IOM) report: The Future of Nursing (FoN): Leading Change, Advancing Health and the background organizations that wrote it. It demonstrates some key recommendations of FoN: Leading Change, Advancing Health report and its “fit” with Indian Country. The chapter differentiates between challenges in obtaining nursing education in Indian Country and those in dominant culture settings. The IOM’s effort with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) on the FoN has been noticed by many, yet direct care nurses are largely unaware of the report. The chapter outlines the FoN recommendations into two groups: gaining education, practicing to its fullest scope, and pushing for more, including lifelong learning; and shaping policy, being at the table as full partners in health care redesign, and leading change. For American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) nurses graduating from tribal colleges and universities (TCU), the majority will have an associate’s degree.

Nurses have a key role in the identification, treatment, and control of the transmission of infection within the correctional setting. The prevalence of infectious disease among the incarcerated has great impact on the safety and security of correctional facilities and on the public health. Nursing interventions that prevent communicable diseases such as ectoparasites, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) include screening, patient education and counseling, immunization, monitoring treatment compliance, and symptom management. Handwashing, or hand hygiene, is arguably the best overall workplace practice for preventing spread of infection. Isolation procedures are used to control transmission of disease when treating patients with known or suspected transmissible infections. Nursing procedures involved in prevention and control of communicable diseases include medication administration, monitoring inmate adherence to the treatment plan, education, counseling to reduce risk of disease transmission, collaboration with public health organizations, and discharge planning.