Nursing Today: Transition and Trends

A student favorite for its easy-to-read style, real-life applications, and humorous cartoons, Nursing Today: Transition and Trends, 7th Edition helps you make a successful transition from student to practicing nurse. It covers the profession's leading issues and opportunities, ensuring that you graduate not only with patient care skills but with career development skills including resume writing, finding a job, and effective interviewing. Test-taking tips and strategies prepare you for the NCLEX-RN^® exam, and discussions of communication and management issues prepare you to succeed in the workplace. In this edition, well-known educator JoAnn Zerwekh and coauthor Ashley Zerwekh Garneau provide the latest information on nursing issues and trends including health care reform, patient safety, collective bargaining, and emergency preparedness.

• Thorough coverage prepares you for a professional nursing career by including all of the most important issues faced by the new nurse.
• An engaging presentation features lively cartoons, chapter objectives, bibliographies, and colorful summary boxes.
• Critical Thinking boxes are located in every chapter, with relevant questions and exercises to apply what you have learned to clinical practice.
• Evidence-Based Practice boxes focus on the research evidence that supports clinical practice.
• Real-life scenarios in each chapter illustrate and personalize the chapter topics.
• An emphasis on making the transition into the workplace is included in chapters such as NCLEX-RN and the New Graduate, Employment Considerations: Opportunities, Resumes, and Interviewing, and Mentoring and Preceptorship.
• A companion Evolve website includes Case Studies for every chapter, test-taking strategies, a sample NCLEX test tutorial, a sample NCLEX exam, appendices, and resume builder templates for creating professional resumes and cover letters.

• Health care reform is covered in the Economics of the Health Care Delivery System chapter, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the new Patient Bill of Rights as they apply to health care delivery and cost.
• Updated Health Care Organization and Patterns of Nursing Care Delivery chapter covers the results of managed care and explains the "p4p" (pay for performance) payment system, eliminating payment for medical errors as urged by the Institute of Medicine, and the collaboration at all levels of care to prevent medical errors and improve quality of care.
• A chapter on collective bargaining and unions covers the creation in 2009 of the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses, the National Nurses United (NNU), and related issues.
• Updated Emergency Preparedness chapter covers The World Health Organization's (WHO) global pandemic influenza plan and its relation to public health and immunization.
• Coverage of QSEN and Patient Safety includes not only Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, but also the National Patient Safety Foundation and the Institute of Medicine competencies related to patient safety, as well as better communication among health care providers, quality improvement, and guidelines from The Joint Commission.
• Coverage of evidence-based practice includes management protocols and interventions used as the basis for clinical outcomes.

The book contains predominantly black-and-white illustrations, with some two-color illustrations.

This bestselling issues & trends textbook gives you a broad understanding of the problems and opportunities you will face as you make the transition from student to practicing nurse. While most of your studies have focused on learning how to care for the patient, this text teaches you the practical skills essential to managing the business side of your nursing career, including tips on resume writing and interviewing techniques, how to prepare for the NCLEX-RN exam, and effective ways to communicate and handle conflict in the work place. This new edition includes two new chapters on Emergency Preparedness and Building Nursing Management Skills plus numerous chapters that have been updated with the most relevant topics necessary for today's nursing student.

• Each chapter features lively cartoons, chapter objectives and exercises, boxed information, and critical thinking questions to keep you focused on pertinent information.
• The Role Transitions chapter orients you to the content and leads off the topics covered in the textbook.
• Continued coverage of current issues in the Workplace Issues chapter includes updated content on sexual harassment, needle stick injury and other topics.
• Employment Considerations chapter combines in-depth coverage on seeking employment, resume writing and interviewing techniques.
• NCLEX-RN and the New Graduate is an entire chapter featuring valuable tips on how to prepare for and successfully pass the exam.
• Evolve companion website includes Case Studies, Test Taking Strategies, a sample NCLEX Test Tutorial, a sample NCLEX Test, plus access to Resume Maker templates for creating professionalresumes and cover letters.

• UNIQUE! New Emergency Preparedness chapter provides an in-depth look at bioterrorism and rapid response teams.
• UNIQUE! The revised and newly titled Building Nursing Management Skills chapter focuses on how to manage your time, get organized, develop and use communication skills, and delegate.
• UNIQUE! New Evidence-Based Practice boxes convey the research element in the topics covered.
• Updated chapter on Personal Management: Time and Self-care Strategies includes information on how to manage and balance your personal and professional time.
• Updated Nursing Education chapter includes current information on credentialing, registration and licensing, certification and accreditation.
• Updated Image of Nursing: Influences of the Present chapter describes the nurse's role, the traditional role of the nurse, and nurses as advocates, teachers, colleagues and managers.
• Updated Table of Contents improves the flow of material covered to make it easier for you to quickly find and learn important topics.

Betsy Frank

This book is the third edition of a popular issues and trends text. The editors have revised and updated the chapters and added several new chapters -- ""Health in the Community: Nursing's Role"" and ""Alternative and Complementary Health Care."" In response to the demand for more management content, the editors include a chapter entitled ""Group Process and Team Building."" The editors state that the purpose is to help the student who is about to graduate become aware of the transition process involved in coping with the realities of a rapidly changing practice environment. The text is for use in the typical transition course offered in the senior or final year of a pre-licensure registered nurse program. Certainly such a text is needed to help students prepare for their entrance into the practice arena. The primary audience is students in Associate Degree, Diploma, or Baccalaureate programs who are in the final phases of their educational careers. The editors provide an overview of many topics, and this book could also be used as a reference for the new graduate who is faced with a multiplicity of transition issues. However, an in-depth study of any one issue would require further reading in other sources such as journal articles or other texts. The conversational writing style makes this book exceptionally easy to read. Important points are highlighted and thoughtful questions and exercises are included. Cartoons add a humorous approach to illustrating the content. The Internet references provide on-line sites for further exploration of issues, and the web site, when activated, will provide faculty with frequent updates of content. Currently, faculty receive updates via asemi-annual newsletter. This updated text will be quite useful in transitions/issues and trends courses for pre-licensure students.

Executive Director, Nursing Education Consultants, Ingram, TX

Executive Director, Nursing Education Consultants, Ingram, TX; Nursing Faculty - Online Campus, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ