Understanding the Essentials of Critical Care Nursing, 3rd edition

Reflects a patient-centered approach that helps beginning critical care nurses deliver safe, effective care that optimizes patients’ outcomes. While the book maintains a constant focus on the patient, it also provides the disorder management information students will need as practicing nurses.

NEW: Keeps readers current with new recommendations for practice. The Third Edition reflects significant changes in the provision of sedation and pain medication as well as the management of ventilation, heart failure, stroke, blood, or volume resuscitation in trauma, palliative care, and sepsis.

NEW: Helps readers discern the most appropriate collaborative management or nursing care to provide in complex situations. Perfect for in-class discussion or individual student journaling, the Why/Why not? feature asks students to critically analyze why or why not they should implement a specific collaborative management strategy or nursing action.

NEW: Offers opportunities to assess critical thinking, understanding, and progress using NCLEX^®-style questions. Students will gain practice answering NCLEX-style questions using the two questions located at the end of each major chapter section and five questions located at the end of each chapter.

Explores the dynamic factors that can make the difference between life or death in critical care. Intuitive Visual Maps illustrate crucial relationships among the disease states, collaborative interventions, and outcomes.

Highlights the medications critical care nurses are most likely to use, helping students integrate medication administration into collaborative patient management. Commonly Used Medications boxes provide information on dosing information, desired effects, nursing responsibilities, and potential side effects.

Reinforces the crucial importance of safe practice and presents the best techniques for preventing errors. Safety Initiative boxes highlight safety recommendations, their purposes, and the rationales which can limit errors and enhance patient safety.

Connects theory to real life. Case Study scenarios illustrate the content in each chapter, provide realistic examples of collaborative and nursing management, and challenge students with critical-thinking questions.

Prepares students to care for diverse patient communities. Gerontologic and Bariatric Considerations in every chapter highlight the unique needs of the elderly and overweight.

Helps develop state-of-the-art technology skills. Building Technology Skills sections focus on the technologies nurses are most likely to encounter when caring for patients experiencing the conditions discussed in each chapter, and the skills they need to use those technologies.

Prepares students for the uniquely difficult challenges of caring for patients at the end of life. This is one of only a few critical care texts to include a full chapter on end-of-life care.

Promotes successful learning and retention. Proven pedagogical features include critical-thinking and end-of-chapter review questions.

Identifies a wide range of nursing goals that the novice nurse must know. Essentials explore specific opportunities to promote comfort, provide nutrition, enhance communication, and maintain safety—reflecting the areas identified by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Nurse of the Future initiative.

Presents a collaborative approach to nursing. Nursing Actions sections emphasize collaborative care with the healthcare team and safety interventions required for the effective care of the patient. Nursing Care sections detail interventions that focus on providing care to a patient and creating a healing environment.

Promotes reflection and journaling on difficult issues that nurses may encounter. Reflect On features facilitate a novice nurse’s progression to expert nurse by having them reflect on the issues encountered in practice.

Keeps readers current with new recommendations for practice. The Third Edition reflects significant changes in the provision of sedation and pain medication as well as the management of ventilation, heart failure, stroke, blood, or volume resuscitation in trauma, palliative care, and sepsis.

Helps readers discern the most appropriate collaborative management or nursing care to provide in complex situations. Perfect for in-class discussion or individual student journaling, the Why/Why not? feature asks students to critically analyze why or why not they should implement a specific collaborative management strategy or nursing action.

Offers opportunities to assess critical-thinking, understanding, and progress using NCLEX^®-style questions. Students will gain practice answering NCLEX-style questions using the two questions located at the end of each major chapter section and five questions located at the end of each chapter.