Subject Guide: Health and Nursing: Books/DVDs

This essential programme employs a dynamic combination of dramatised scenarios, real footage on the ward, and expert comment from health professionals, to get to the heart of communication in a health care setting.

In this program, we explore the nursing process as a framework for decision making; from assessment and planning, to implementation and evaluation. We look in more detail at the eight steps of the judgment process, identify typical roles within a nursing unit and how they contribute to effective team decision making, and discuss internal and external barriers to good choices.

Team nursing is founded on a philosophy that supports the achievement of goals through group action. Under the team nursing model, all members are encouraged to make suggestions and share ideas. This essential video resource provides nurse unit managers and nursing team members with the knowledge and practical tools needed to develop a highly effective nursing team.

Care plans, clinical pathways and critical pathways are some of the tools available for the management of patient care, allowing for a systematic and holistic multi-disciplinary approach to patient care. This program explains these tools and provides insight into their implementation and evaluation. Additionally, the program presents some of the innovative technological development and initiatives that are seeing advancements in patient care management.

It is hard to find a person whose life has not been touched by a nurse, yet how much do we know about these people we let into some of the most intimate, joyful and difficult moments of the human experience? This film offers a rare look into the complex, exciting and challenging world of being a nurse. It explores what it means to be a nurse, the many different roles that nurses play, from the bedside to the boardroom, and the realities of nursing - its joys and sorrows and the many ways that nurses impact the lives of others. Over 100 nurses from across the country were interviewed for this film. Their stories will move you to laughter and to tears.

A biography and visual summary of Florence Nightingale's contributions to the body of nursing knowledge. Florence Nightingale, (1820-1910) was a celebrated English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. She came to prominence while serving as a manager of nurses trained by her during the Crimean War, where she organised the tending to wounded soldiers. In 1860, Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.

Throughout history, the perception of nurses has ranged from wise women to witches, sots to ministering angels, handmaidens to battleaxes. The professional role of the nurse has changed dramatically. Originally the nurse held an independent, curative position in healing the sick. Most of this responsibility has since been lost. In its place, a profession has developed which, while demanding altruism and dedication, is locked into a supportive and secondary role to that of the medical profession. Handmaidens and Battleaxes asks the question, 'Why and how did this happen?' It probes why nursing evolved primarily as a women's profession. Importantly, it examines the psychological and sociological influences that have held the profession in check and fed the age-old disregard for the work of the nurse. The film gives a global picture of nursing, using Australia as a case study but with comparative input from American and British counterparts. It highlights the complex social, political and professional dilemmas faced by nurses today.