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Medicine

 

Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

Nursing 

Pocket Companion for Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 6th edition by Carolyn Jarvis (Saunders) The sixth edition of Pocket Companion for Physical Examination and Health Assessment is designed for two groups those who need a practical clinical reference and those acquiring beginning assessment skills.

Designed for quick reference in the clinical environment, this portable resource summarizes essential assessment skills and techniques for the most effective physical examinations. It provides precise information, including full-color pathology photos and illustrations, examination steps for each body system, normal versus abnormal findings, developmental and cultural competencies, related nursing diagnoses, and summary checklists.

First, the Pocket Companion is intended as an adjunct to Jarvis' Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 6th edition. The Pocket Companion by Carolyn Jarvis, MSN, APN, CNP, Family Nurse Practitioner, Chestnut Health Systems, Bloomington, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing, Illinois Wesleyan University, is a memory prompt for those who have studied physical assessment and wish a reminder when in the clinic. The Pocket Companion has the essentials: health history points, exam steps for each body system, normal versus abnormal findings, heart sounds, lung sounds, neurologic checks. The Pocket Companion is useful when readers forget a step in the exam sequence, when they wish to be sure their assessment is complete, when they need to review the findings that are normal versus abnormal, or when they are faced with an unfamiliar technique or a new clinical area. Its portable size and binding make it perfect for a lab coat pocket or community health bag./p>

Second, Pocket Companion for Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 6th edition, is an independent primer of basic assessment skills. It is well suited to programs offering a beginning assessment course covering well people of all ages. The Pocket Companion has the complete steps to perform a health history and physical examination on a well person. It includes pertinent developmental content for pediatric, pregnant, and aging adult patients. Although the description of each exam step is stated concisely, there is enough information given to study and learn exam techniques. However, since there is no room in the Pocket Companion for theories, principles, or detailed explanations, students using the Pocket Companion as a beginning text must have a thorough didactic presentation of assessment methods as well as tutored practice.

Pocket Companion for Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 6th edition, is revised and updated to match the revision of the parent text, Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 6th edition, including many new examination photos, abnormal findings photos, and full color art. A companion chapter on the Bedside Assessment of the Hospitalized Adult has been added as Chapter 21, outlining the pertinent assessment steps detailed in Chapter 28 of the parent text. For those times when readers need detailed coverage of a particular technique or finding, it is easily found through numerous cross-references to pages in the parent volume.

More than 160 full-color illustrations clearly demonstrate important anatomy and physiology concepts, examination steps, and normal and abnormal findings. Spanish-language translation chart helps readers ensure accurate, effective examinations of Spanish-speaking patients. Additional new full-color examination technique photos clarify exam steps for eyes, nose, mouth, throat, thorax, heart, neck, peripheral vascular, and pediatric exams.

Readers of Pocket Companion for Physical Examination and Health Assessment will note these features:

  • Health history and exam steps are concise yet complete.
  • Method of examination is clear, orderly, and easy to follow.
  • Abnormal findings are described briefly in a column adjacent to the normal range of findings.
  • Tables are presented at the end of chapters to fully illustrate important information.
  • Selected Cultural Competencies information highlights this important aspect of a health assessment.
  • Nursing diagnoses are provided for each region or system being assessed.
  • Developmental Competencies content includes age-specific information for pediatric, pregnant, and aging adult groups.
  • Summary checklists for each chapter form a cue card of exam steps to remember.
  • Integration of the complete physical examination is presented in Chapter 20.
  • Sample recording in Chapter 20 illustrates the documentation of normal findings.
  • Selected artwork illustrates the pertinent anatomy.

With this convenient clinical tool, readers can quickly access essentials of assessment in the clinical setting. Pocket Companion for Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 6th edition is ideal for quick reference in the clinical setting, summarizing essential assessment skills and techniques for the most effective physical examinations. Readers can access full-color pathology photos and illustrations, health history, examination steps for each body system, normal versus abnormal findings, lifespan and cross-cultural considerations, related nursing diagnoses, and summary checklists anytime.

The convenient, color-coded design helps readers easily locate the information they need.

Abnormal findings tables provide fast access to key information on many frequently encountered conditions.

Nursing Programs 2005, 10th Revised Edition  (Peterson's) is the only comprehensive guide to baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in the U.S. and Canada. It contains profiles of more than 2,000 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral programs at more than 700 institutions. There is also information about the nursing shortage, updated and redesigned profiles that provide more information on nursing degree options, and information about programs that train students for work as nurse practitioners, clinical specialists, RNs, and many other positions.

The Continuum of Long-Term Care by Connie Evashwick (Delmar Series in Health Services Administration: Thomson Delmar Learning) offers a conceptual framework for creating a seamless integrated continuum of care, as well as concrete information about the increasing number of components that affect the continuum today. With numerous case studies, examples, service snapshots, and resources for further study, this pragmatic book is an essential resource for anyone involved in providing or paying for long-term care.

Long-term care is one of the greatest challenges facing the health care delivery system. In terms of population need, consumer demand, resource consumption, financing, and system organization, long-term care will be a dominant issue during the coming decades. The components of long-term care each have grown during the past decades. Service availability has increased; integration is beginning to occur. For the limited available resources to meet the increasing demand, the system that currently exists—an ad hoc, distinct arrangement for each individual—must evolve into a well-organized, effi­cient, client-oriented continuum of care.

To accomplish the cost-effective goals currently being promoted in the acute care and health care financing arenas, long-term care must be dealt with as an essential complement to acute care. Most clients' problems cannot be bifurcated into acute and long-term needs. Thus, for health care providers and payers to accomplish their market and financial goals, long-term care will be needed. Conversely, long-term care providers will not enjoy the same market niche over time unless they affiliate at some level with broader health care delivery systems. In the future, no service or payer will be able to func­tion totally independently and succeed in capturing a market or sustaining financial viability.

Thus, administrators in acute care, payer systems, or any segment of long-term care must understand at least the basics of the other components of the continuum of care. As providers and payers negoti­ate contracts and try to manage client care efficiently, administrators will not be able to function in isolation. They must know the strengths and weaknesses of other services and how to use them appropriately and cost-effectively. They must know how to link services and guide clients over time through chang­ing needs. They must be able to merge private and public funding streams and regulations.

The purpose of this book is to proffer a conceptual framework for thinking about the ideal organization of an integrated continuum of care and to provide concrete information about the components of the continuum as they exist today. At minimum, it is hoped that administrators can learn enough about the basics of each component of the contin­uum of care to manage client flow effectively, de-spite the current fragmentation of long-term care services. At best, it is possible that administrators may gain insights about how to design and develop a comprehensive, integrated system of care for the future.

In Part One, Chapter 1 defines long-term care and the continuum of care and gives the rationale for the organization of the book. Chapter 2 de-scribes the range of clients needing long-term care. Chapter 3 elaborates on caregivers—critical partners to both clients and providers.

A continuum comprises both services and inte­grating mechanisms. Part Two is devoted to the services. Although ideally the services will be inte­grated, the reality of the present is that each service has its own distinct clients, financing, staffing, and other features. Except for the single exclusion of the physician, these chapters present detailed information about the services that are the most fundamen­tal to long-term care. The "Service Snapshot" for many chapters enables the reader to compare and contrast the services easily, and thus highlights the challenges to achieving integration.

Part Three covers integrating mechanisms. Each of the four essential integrating mechanisms of the continuum is discussed: organization, care coordination/case management, information systems, and financing. Public policy and ethical issues pertaining to long-term care are also described in this section.

Part Four describes continuums of care that are designed for special populations: those with HIV/ AIDS, the aged, those with disabilities, those with mental illness, veterans, those needing rehabilitation, and children with special needs.

Throughout, the book attempts to be pragmatic, giving administrators the information they need to know to interact with the organizations that are involved in providing or paying for long-term care. Case studies and examples have been included whenever possible. "Where to Go for Further Information" sections include professional and trade associations and government agencies, complete with Web site addresses. Appendix A is a list of major federal leg­islation pertaining to long-term care. Appendix B lists contact information for many national organizations that are helpful to professionals concerned with the continuum of care.

We assume that any administrator who intends to specialize in one aspect of long-term care will seek in-depth information about the area of interest. The purpose of this book is to present an overview in sufficient depth to give administrators the management information they need to develop success­ful organizational relationships and the perspective they need to assist clients in getting the services they need, when they need them, with efficiency and quality.

Spirituality in Nursing: From Traditional to New Age, 2nd edition by Barbara Stevens Barnum (Springer Publishing Company) Our society is within the midst of a great spiritual awakening. The practical sciences are discovering an ethical and life-affirming or spiritual focus to the practice of knowledge. Barnum makes some of the implications of spirituality clear for nursing as a career.
Thoroughly updated, the new edition of this award-winning book looks at spirituality and nursing from many perspectives: theoretical, historical, religious, psychological, physiological. In this thoughtful exploration of the reemergence of spirituality as an important factor in nursing practice, the author traces nursing's involvement with spirituality from its historical ties with religion to the current interest in New Age and alternative health methods. Nursing theories involving spirituality such as Dossey, Newman, and Watson, are examined, and nursing trends are seen in the larger context of trends in society and other disciplines, such as psychology, physics and philosophy. In this new edition there is more information on techniques and therapies for incorporating spirituality into patient care.

When the first edition of this book was written, spirituality was just reen­tering nursing's interest and practice. In the interim time, nursing's focus on spirituality has only grown. Yet attention to spirituality by the profession has waxed and waned over the decades. Indeed, nursing as a discrete profession arose from spirituality, then relegated spirituality to a back seat in its drive to become credible in the academic world. Now nursing is turning back to see what was lost in this maneuver.

This book looks at nursing's relationship with spirituality from various perspectives: theoretical, historical, religious, psychological, and physiologi­cal. It examines the renewed interest in spirituality fostered by the so-called New Age Movement in the larger society. The book reviews spirituality as a nursing task and asks, are we prepared to tackle it? It considers spirituality as a patient need and as a nursing diagnosis. It weighs spirituality as a nursing domain in competition with the spiritual ministration rights claimed by chap­lains, other religious practitioners, and physicians who have recently jumped on the "spiritual bandwagon." It ponders the nature of spirituality reflected in our newer and older nursing theories. It compares and contrasts spiritual reme­dies offered in traditional and New Age philosophies.

The book is not meant to be a compendium on the subject matter of spir­ituality. Instead, it is an intimate look at the thoughts of one nurse on spiritu­ality as it affects our work in a profession that puts us in intimate interaction with other human beings at stressful and meaningful times in their lives.

However one views spirit and spirituality, the quest for ultimate meaning in life rears its head in the practice of nursing in at least three guises. First, nurses must be concerned with their own concepts of spirit, their own ways of giving meaning to their lives. Second, they must confront patients in moments of stress that bring to the forefront the patients' spiritual concerns. Third, nurses must consider how ethics and spirituality inform the organiza­tions in which they work.

This sound work helps put the sciences of nursing into a holistic frame that may help in the professional formation of nurses.

 

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