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Decision Making in Nursing: Tools for Change
Death, the Final Stage of Growth. KublerRoss, Elisabeth. Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632, 1974, 175 pp. This book is a collection of essays offering insight on "death as a final stage in every individual's growth." A spectrum of views is presented as a guide in one's own search for life's meaning and death. Although written for the general public, this book is of value for persons in the health care professions. The essays make the reader think of death, his own and others, and how to prepare and handle this ultimate inevitability. The message of the book is . . to live your life rather than simple passing through it. Rejoice at the opportunity of experiencing each new day." This prepares one for acceptance of ultimate death. Several chapters are helpful specifically to those in health care who must cope with death as it occurs around them. What can one say at this time? How can one handle his own emotions on the death of a patient? Comments lead to the directive that one should not hesitate to become involved with the patient and family at this time. It is helpful for all concerned to share these emotions. At the beginning of each essay, Dr Kubler-Ross comments on the author and what he has to offer. These comments are pertinent and enlightening. They offer some interpretation but allow the reader to develop his own thoughts. Several times the comments bring out how our society and the health care professions are geared to prolong life and ignore death. Because of this general philosophy, deaths in hospitals have become depersonalized. "Hospitals are institutions committed to the healing process and dying patients are a threat to that defined role. There is no room in the prescribed roles of professional for them to behave as human beings in response to their dying patients." New trauma systems bring more critically injured patients to the operating rooms. Not all of these patients can be successfully treated because the magnitude of their injuries. We in the operating room are now experiencing death more often. Those ORs that have such facilities need to give some thought to death, not only in relation to the 'I.
patient and his family, but also to our own and other staff members' responses and methods of handling it. This book assists one in thinking about this total experience. June C Persson, RN Denver Decision Making in Nursing: Tools for Change. Bailey, June T. C V Mosby Co, 11830 Westline Industrial Dr. St Louis, Mo 63141, 1975, 158 pp, $6.50 paperback. The rationale for a systems model for decision making includes current social, educational, and professional trends and practices influencing health care problem solving. Problems are defined and their origins, timeliness, and significance considered. The reader goes through the process of identifying different sources of interpretation of a problem and choosing alternate problemsolving approaches. In the Claus-Bailey System Model, the reader identifies specific decision objectives and performance criteria, examines alternative solutions and their consequences. Having chosen the best alternative, the decision is implemented and finally evaluated, allowing for subsequent adjustments in the form of correction or supplementation of the original decision. For nurse administrators, this book is a good review of what should be basically standard practice in effective nursing management. For the nursing middle manager, team leader, or head nurse who gravitated to administrative positions by virtue of being a good clinician with tenure, this book provides a concrete problem-solving model that will help take decision making and problem sobing out of the intuitive "gut" and into the computer bank of the cerebellum. The authors could have incorporated more practical examples in acute care nurse settings to illustrate the different steps in their model for decision making. The practicing clinician, when reading this book, will have to define and absorb technically socialogical, statistical, and business jargon which slows down the digestion of an otherwise helpful model. The reasoning that a system is necessary for a professional nurse to be an effective
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decision maker is sound. This book offers itself as a useful tool to achieve increased competency in the problem-solving aspects of our profession. Karen C Hyland, RN Kansas City, Mo
Care of the Adult Patient:Medical-Surgical Nursing, 4th ed. Smith, Dorothy W, Germain, Carol P Hanley. J B Lippincott, P 0 Box 7758, Philadelphia, Pa 19101, 1975, 1228 pp. Changes in the role of the nurse and her methods of giving care are noted in this edition. Stress has been placed upon the nursing process and especially assessment of the patient. The first two chapters deal exclusively with these concepts with references and bibliography at the end of each chapter for additional study. A continued emphasis on assessment appears throughout the other chapters in the text dealing with various physical ailments and their treatment. Additional chapters in the first unit cover basic concepts in care of the individual in various age groups, emotional situations, cultural groups, and medical situations. Allergic patients, drug-dependent patients, dying patients, and psychosomatic patients are but a few that are dealt with individually. The care of the patient who undergoes surgery is discussed in unit two with emphasis on the nursing process in the preoperative, operative, and postoperative phases. Assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation are placed in perspective in each of these areas. Throughout the remainder of the text, patients with disorders in specific systemic areas are discussed. Nursing management and intervention for all situations encountered are well explained. The final unit deals with intensive care nursing and life-threatening or crisis situations. Shock, respiratory insufficiency, arrhythmias, myocardial infarctions, heart surgery, renal failure, and burns are covered extensively. A reference and bibliographic section follows each chapter for additional materials. This textbook is a good basic medicalsurgical nursing reference book. It has been
1018
improved with the application of nursing process in all areas discussed. Susan Brunke, RN
Omaha Dimensions of Professional Nursing, 3rd ed. Kelly, Lucie Young. MacMillan Publishing Co, 866 Third Ave, New York, NY 10022, 1975, 573 pp. In this one book, the reader can find most everything a nurse needs to know other than clinical information. For example, the student may be interested in the role of the nurse as it has evolved and its place in society today. The practitioner may want a guide for handling a resignation, a brief summary of the First Amendment, definitions of professional nursing as six states have written it, or the role of the physician's assistant or the operating room technician. Though the first and third editions were written by a Kelly, they are not relatives. Cordelia Kelly's purpose of presenting "in one text an overview of the nonclinical aspects of nursing" has been continued by Lucie Young Kelly. Whereas the first edition "mothered" the student, the reader will find a more mature approach in this edition written in the third person. Nursing as it is today is emphasized; for example, the book stresses the concern for outcomes rather than the mechanics of "how", respect for consumer input, responsibility for accountability, and the working relationship of the physician and nurse as one of mutual respect. The first edition suggests that a nurse with a problem should consult a more experienced nurse: the third edition suggests the problem might be taken to the nursing conference. In 573 pages is given the whole story of nursing-past, present, and a glimpse of what can come. Sister M Thomasine Hardesty, OP, RN Cincinnati
Companion Guide to Surgical Diagnosis. Lowenfels, Albert B. The Williams & Wilkins Co, 428 E Preston St, Baltimore, Md 21202, 1975, 276 pp, $7.95 paperback. Although nurses have been encouraged to participate in nursing diagnosis in the last
AORN Journal. December 1975, Vol22, No 6
patient and his family, but also to our own and other staff members' responses and methods of handling it. This book assists one in thinking about this total experience. June C Persson, RN Denver Decision Making in Nursing: Tools for Change. Bailey, June T. C V Mosby Co, 11830 Westline Industrial Dr. St Louis, Mo 63141, 1975, 158 pp, $6.50 paperback. The rationale for a systems model for decision making includes current social, educational, and professional trends and practices influencing health care problem solving. Problems are defined and their origins, timeliness, and significance considered. The reader goes through the process of identifying different sources of interpretation of a problem and choosing alternate problemsolving approaches. In the Claus-Bailey System Model, the reader identifies specific decision objectives and performance criteria, examines alternative solutions and their consequences. Having chosen the best alternative, the decision is implemented and finally evaluated, allowing for subsequent adjustments in the form of correction or supplementation of the original decision. For nurse administrators, this book is a good review of what should be basically standard practice in effective nursing management. For the nursing middle manager, team leader, or head nurse who gravitated to administrative positions by virtue of being a good clinician with tenure, this book provides a concrete problem-solving model that will help take decision making and problem sobing out of the intuitive "gut" and into the computer bank of the cerebellum. The authors could have incorporated more practical examples in acute care nurse settings to illustrate the different steps in their model for decision making. The practicing clinician, when reading this book, will have to define and absorb technically socialogical, statistical, and business jargon which slows down the digestion of an otherwise helpful model. The reasoning that a system is necessary for a professional nurse to be an effective
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decision maker is sound. This book offers itself as a useful tool to achieve increased competency in the problem-solving aspects of our profession. Karen C Hyland, RN Kansas City, Mo
Care of the Adult Patient:Medical-Surgical Nursing, 4th ed. Smith, Dorothy W, Germain, Carol P Hanley. J B Lippincott, P 0 Box 7758, Philadelphia, Pa 19101, 1975, 1228 pp. Changes in the role of the nurse and her methods of giving care are noted in this edition. Stress has been placed upon the nursing process and especially assessment of the patient. The first two chapters deal exclusively with these concepts with references and bibliography at the end of each chapter for additional study. A continued emphasis on assessment appears throughout the other chapters in the text dealing with various physical ailments and their treatment. Additional chapters in the first unit cover basic concepts in care of the individual in various age groups, emotional situations, cultural groups, and medical situations. Allergic patients, drug-dependent patients, dying patients, and psychosomatic patients are but a few that are dealt with individually. The care of the patient who undergoes surgery is discussed in unit two with emphasis on the nursing process in the preoperative, operative, and postoperative phases. Assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation are placed in perspective in each of these areas. Throughout the remainder of the text, patients with disorders in specific systemic areas are discussed. Nursing management and intervention for all situations encountered are well explained. The final unit deals with intensive care nursing and life-threatening or crisis situations. Shock, respiratory insufficiency, arrhythmias, myocardial infarctions, heart surgery, renal failure, and burns are covered extensively. A reference and bibliographic section follows each chapter for additional materials. This textbook is a good basic medicalsurgical nursing reference book. It has been
1018
improved with the application of nursing process in all areas discussed. Susan Brunke, RN
Omaha Dimensions of Professional Nursing, 3rd ed. Kelly, Lucie Young. MacMillan Publishing Co, 866 Third Ave, New York, NY 10022, 1975, 573 pp. In this one book, the reader can find most everything a nurse needs to know other than clinical information. For example, the student may be interested in the role of the nurse as it has evolved and its place in society today. The practitioner may want a guide for handling a resignation, a brief summary of the First Amendment, definitions of professional nursing as six states have written it, or the role of the physician's assistant or the operating room technician. Though the first and third editions were written by a Kelly, they are not relatives. Cordelia Kelly's purpose of presenting "in one text an overview of the nonclinical aspects of nursing" has been continued by Lucie Young Kelly. Whereas the first edition "mothered" the student, the reader will find a more mature approach in this edition written in the third person. Nursing as it is today is emphasized; for example, the book stresses the concern for outcomes rather than the mechanics of "how", respect for consumer input, responsibility for accountability, and the working relationship of the physician and nurse as one of mutual respect. The first edition suggests that a nurse with a problem should consult a more experienced nurse: the third edition suggests the problem might be taken to the nursing conference. In 573 pages is given the whole story of nursing-past, present, and a glimpse of what can come. Sister M Thomasine Hardesty, OP, RN Cincinnati
Companion Guide to Surgical Diagnosis. Lowenfels, Albert B. The Williams & Wilkins Co, 428 E Preston St, Baltimore, Md 21202, 1975, 276 pp, $7.95 paperback. Although nurses have been encouraged to participate in nursing diagnosis in the last
AORN Journal. December 1975, Vol22, No 6