Journal of professional nursing : official journal of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing
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In clinical practice professional nurses appear to make different judgments regarding particular nursing situations. The purpose of this literature review is to gain insight into the way nurses make decisions related to nursing diagnoses and interventions. Literature on decision making can be divided into literature that focuses on how decisions are made, ie, information-processing model, and information that focuses on how decisions ought to be made, ie, mathematical models. ⋯ These factors include the problem task (cues), the decision maker (his or her knowledge, experience, personal variability), and discipline. However, to date, most of the research that has been done with regard to these factors has been restricted to the performance between novice and expert. We conclude that further validation of nursing diagnoses is necessary to ensure accuracy in decision making in nursing.
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There is a dearth of information on the role of the department chairperson in the nursing literature. As defined in this article, a chairperson is the middle manager and interface between the dean and the faculty. Chairperson refers to the leader of an adult health, maternal/parent child, community, or mental health department who reports to the dean of the School of Nursing. ⋯ The chairperson must facilitate positive relationships, increase faculty productivity, and empower faculty. This constitutes the foundation for chairperson to facilitate greater faculty development, teaching excellence, and relationships. Implications for ways that nursing leaders may improve this position through the evaluative process are explored.
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This article examines a range of ethically related concerns and considerations that must be addressed by health professionals and society as they grapple with how to make decisions about the type and degree of treatment to provide to patients at the ends of their lives. These considerations include (1) medical and nursing indications; (2) patient desires; (3) patient interests, including benefit/burden analysis and quality-of-life considerations; (4) family wishes and interests; and (5) costs. The article elaborates the ethical warrants and justifications for why these concerns need to be addressed in clinical decision making and in the development of a national health care policy. A substantial bibliography of current ethics literature on these issues is included.
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Efforts to raise consciousness and heighten sensitivity toward the issues of races, class, ethnicity, and gender are being espoused throughout society today. Within higher education there is currently a national debate over whether or not curricula are exclusive of certain ethnic and cultural perspectives. The National League of Nursing (NLN) in 1989 resolved that innovative nursing curricula be developed that (1) enhance caring practices through faculty-student relationships and faculty-faculty relationships that are egalitarian and humane and characterized by cooperation and community building; (2) incorporate social values that recognize diverse life-styles and multicultural and multiracial perspectives; and (3) include contact with or participation by persons at risk including disenfranchised populations such as women, poor, elderly, and homosexual persons. ⋯ The dialogues are difficult because engagement in this type of discourse may lead to feelings of discomfort and uneasiness among faculty and students. Although these feelings were experienced by class participants, the end result was a constructive and powerful learning experience. The willingness of the black students and faculty in the course to share their lived experiences of discrimination and oppression in a white society and the willingness of the white students and faculty to hear a different lived experience from their own was education at its best.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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The nursing literature is replete with commentary and opinions about the research and scholarly productivity of nursing faculty. There are also a number of research studies on several aspects of faculty productivity. However, a scholarly critique and integration of research on this topic is lacking. This article reviews the literature on faculty research productivity and synthesizes the findings to present recommendations for promoting nursing faculty research and scholarship.