Clinical Nursing Skills: Basic to Advanced Skills by Sandra F. Smith, Donna J. Duell, Barbara C. Martin

From the Publisher

Clinical Nursing Skills 7e remains a best-selling, comprehensive source of the essential information needed for success at all levels of nursing. With more than 1200 full-colorimages illustrating over 750 new and updated skills, this book is  an invaluable tool that no nursing student or practicing nurse should be without. Exciting new features included in the 7^th edition are: evidenced based nursing care; cultural/religious considerations; case studies; expanded management guidelines; and a focus on community based nursing.

Ada Romaine Davis

This new edition of clinical nursing skills describes in step-by-step manner how to carry out more than 500 nursing procedures, from the simplest, such as bedmaking, to highly complex, such as performing central venous pressure measurements to total parenteral nutrition. The purpose is to provide a practical guide to performing clinical procedures that are done frequently by registered nurses in all settings. Targeted to baccalaureate, associate degree, and diploma nursing students, this excellent clinical skills textbook can be used by all nurses as a reference, review, and for updating knowledge about nursing care procedures. The book has multiple features: the content is clearly and concisely written; there are many photographs, drawings, tables, and graphs that amply illustrate steps in procedures, highlighting points of special importance; learning objectives are provided for each section; a glossary is provided after each section so that students can add terminology incrementally as they proceed from simple to more complex skills; special points about care of older patients are added at the end of each section; and areas in which critical thinking is enhanced are added after each section. The overall design, format, illustrations, and special emphasis on safety of patients and accuracy in carrying out procedures all add to the value and substance of the book. A faculty teaching guide is available. I highly recommend this book as a textbook for nursing students, as a reference book for practicing nurses, and as a review book for nurses in all practice settings.

Penny Wolfe Moore

This fifth edition is a beautiful book with over 1000 color photographs and illustrations that contribute to its educational value. Each chapter is complete with basic to advanced skills related to a specific body system or area of assessment. The editors state "our goals...will be met if both faculty and students find this fifth edition relevant, useful and adaptable to their teaching and learning needs.. .and faculty find the textbook a valuable teaching tool and reference for practice." These worthy goals have been met. This is more than a "skill book," as skills are integrated into the nursing process and skill performance is presented as it fits into the whole of nursing. Students and faculty are the primary audience for this text. It is useful as a reference for practice. I also see it as a useful adjunct to the hospital procedure manual (perhaps even replacing much of it). These editors and contributors have established an excellent reputation for their expertise in both skill performance and textbook preparation. There are more than 600 skills included in this text. New to this edition are alternate methods for skill performance, management guidelines, delegation, cultural diversity, OASIS (for home care), and clinical standards from AACH, CDC, and National Society for IV nurses. The nursing process is the organizing framework. Each step is supported with rationale. The many color photos and illustrations enable students to visualize each step to be performed. The additions to this book justify this fifth edition. The color photos make it interesting and real to life. The information is research based and succinctly presented. The text is large -- 1195 pages -- butcan be used from the beginning to the end of a person's nursing education. A CD-ROM is included with the text and supplementary materials are available to faculty who adopt this text. This is one of the better skills texts available right now.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Mary Allen Carey, PhD (University of Oklahoma College of Nursing)
Description:This performance-based textbook with free skills checklists on CD-ROM is a comprehensive source of essential clinical skills presented in the nursing process framework. The book provides over 650 basic, intermediate and advanced skills presented in a clear, concise, step-by-step format supported by over 1,100 photos and illustrations.
Purpose:The purpose is to assist the student to learn each skill from basic to advanced in a contextual framework, understand the theoretical concepts that serve as a foundation for skills, apply this knowledge to a clinical situation with a client need focus, use critical thinking to evaluate the outcome of the skill and consider unexpected outcomes, appreciate cultural diversity principles as they apply to client situations, validate clinical skills by applying evidence-based nursing practice data and studies, and function in and adapt to the professional role by understanding management responsibilities. The objectives are worthy ones which have been met by the authors.
Audience:The authors state that the book is written for all levels of nursing education, baccalaureate, associate degree, and diploma. Further, the majority of skills are also appropriate for the working clinical nurse.
Features:The nursing process provides the organizing framework for the book. New features in this edition include an extensive chapter entitled "Bioterrorism-Disaster Nursing;" two sections on maternity and pediatrics that have been added to the physical assessment chapter; critical thinking that is usedthroughout the book in the form of case-based critical thinking strategies and critical thinking applications; the addition of cultural competence and evidence-based nursing practice. Photos of newly introduced equipment are included to denote advances in medical technology. Management guidelines complete each chapter including delegation of responsibilities and information flow. These new features are in addition to each chapter's presentation of learning objectives, terminology, nursing diagnoses, rationale for specific nursing actions, clinical alerts, charts, and tables to supplement procedures, expected and unexpected outcomes. The photos and illustrations will enhance learning for the visual learner.
Assessment:The presentation of content is comprehensive and the authors state that the book has been used by many hospitals as their procedure manual. With this edition, the authors have added new skills, new photos and illustrations, and new introductory material. The authors have also incorporated faculty feedback from earlier editions to enhance the quality of this new edition. Given the revisions from the last edition, there is significant justification for replacement with this new edition.

Rating

4 Stars! from Doody

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

The sixth edition of Clinical Nursing Skills continues its high standards for skill presentation. This new edition is expanded to include new chapters as well as new sections of material relevant for the twenty-first-century nurse.

The authors have strived to make this edition current, complete, and relevant for all nursing students, from those who are learning basic skills to senior students who are mastering critical care skills. The majority of skills in this text are also appropriate for the working clinical nurse. Because this text is so comprehensive, it has been adopted by many hospitals as their procedure manual.

Clinical Nursing Skills is a performance-based text written for all levels of nursing education: baccalaureate, associate degree, and diploma. New skills, new photos and illustrations, and new introductory material have been added throughout the text. Also, the text has expanded its very popular Critical Thinking Application at the end of each unit and added Critical Thinking Strategies, with scenarios based on chapter material to stimulate critical thinking ability.

Faculty feedback from prior editions confirms that the most effective way to utilize this text is to teach from the most basic to the more complex skills. The student will learn and perform each specific skill, while also learning how to assess the client, formulate nursing diagnoses, perform the procedure, evaluate the results, and document the pertinent data.

ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK

The Nursing Process continues to provide the organizing framework for this textbook. Within each of the 34 chapters, skills are grouped by unit. Nursing process data is thenprovided for each skill group or unit. Each procedure includes a list of equipment necessary to perform the skill, preparation, and step-by-step nursing interventions. Many steps include rationale for the nursing action. In order not to be redundant or repeat rationale time after time, we have limited these inserts to those most relevant.

The clear and concise format enables the student to easily access key material for immediate reference in the clinical area. Extensive color photographs and drawings within each unit illustrate the concepts presented and enable the student to visualize each step that must be performed.

NEW FEATURES

• More than 650 skills, new and updated, are included in this new edition, including basic, intermediate, and advanced skills. Presented in the Nursing Process framework, this text has more than 1,100 pieces of art to illustrate the skills.
• A new, extensive chapter entitled "Bioterrorism—Disaster Nursing" has been added to this edition. The impetus for including this material was a report by the American Hospital Association (AHA) entitled Hospital Preparedness for Mass Casualties. This report emphasized that a major barrier to developing and implementing a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) response training program is that most schools of nursing do not include this content in their basic curricula and do not prepare the graduating nurse to become a high-level participant in a WMD response team. The authors have included this chapter to assist schools of nursing to quickly add this important content to their curricula, with the hope that in the future, nurses will be prepared (with knowledge and skills) to participate on a professional level with a response team.
• Two new sections, maternity and pediatrics, have been added to the physical assessment chapter, which makes this chapter an all-inclusive reference. Selected pediatric and maternity skills have also been added.
• Critical thinking is found in two places throughout this edition. Critical Thinking Strategies in the form of case studies have been added at the end of each chapter to assist students to practice application of critical thinking principles to clinical situations. Critical Thinking Application sections, which include unexpected outcomes and critical thinking options are placed at the end of each unit. This section assists the student to apply the process of critical thinking when unexpected outcomes occur.
• Cultural Competence and Evidence Based Nursing Practice are adjunct data that have been added to this edition: cultural competence reminds students that cultural diversity principles play a major role in providing client care; and evidence based nursing practice demonstrates how to build a research base for specific interventions in client care.
• Photos of newly introduced equipment are included to denote advances in medical technology.
• Management Guidelines complete each chapter. This component includes Delegation of Responsibilities to teach the student nurse to make critical judgments when delegating tasks within the framework of legal, safe, and appropriate boundaries. It also includes a section on Information Flow, which assists the student to assume a management role by learning to prioritize and communicate relevant client data to members of the health care team.

HALLMARK FEATURES

Because each chapter "stands alone" and is consistently and independently structured, Clinical Nursing Skills can be adapted to all fundamental texts or any program curriculum. This feature allows faculty to use any conceptual model (Newman, Roy, Orem, Rogers, etc.) in the curriculum and to teach the material in any sequence. Clinical Nursing Skills remains the most complete and adaptable nursing skills text available.

• More than 1,100 full-color photographs, line drawings, charts, and tables depict step-by-step nursing procedures. These clear, specific, and up-to-date illustrations display new equipment and new procedures, as well as nurses performing basic to advanced skills.
• Each chapter's introductory material provides the basic theoretical foundation for the procedures that follow. Pedagogic features include Learning Objectives and Terminology pertinent to that chapter. Nursing Diagnoses (phrased in the latest terminology) are relevant to the chapter content and precede step-by-step procedures.
• Additional learning aids in each chapter will help the student assimilate the immense amount of nursing content. For example, Rationale for specific nursing actions assists the student to understand why certain actions are performed. Rationale is selective and pertinent to prevent overloading the student with too much data, which may occur if rationale is presented for every major step in each skill.
• Clinical Alerts throughout the skills call attention to safety issues, essential information, and actions that require critical decision making. Focus material in boxes and shaded areas emphasizes aspects of client care relevant to the skills.
• Frequent Charts and Tables supplement the procedures with useful information.
• For those schools using NIC and NOC, please note that Expected Outcomes continue to be found (and have been included in this book since the first, 1982, edition) in the Evaluation section of Nursing Process Data for each Unit. Unexpected Outcomes are presented in the Critical Thinking Application for each Unit.
• Two valuable sections are at the end of each chapter: Gerontologic Considerations present specific concepts that influence or affect care of the elderly; and Management Guidelines, as described above.

NCLEX RESOURCE

This text will effectively assist students to pass NCLEX. The national licensure examination for nurses (NCLEX) primarily focuses on decision-making and judgment in the clinical area. The Practice Analysis of Newly Licensed Registered Nurses, published by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, lists 189 nursing activities performed by newly licensed nurses throughout the United States. These activities, many of which are nursing skills, comprise the framework for developing the NCLEX question pool. Clinical Nursing Skills includes all of these skills and 75% of the overall activities listed in the Job Analysis.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS

For faculty who adopt Clinical Nursing Skills, a valuable Instructor's Manual is available. Each chapter of the manual includes:

• Teaching/learning strategies
• Listings of reference and resource materials
• Critical thinking scenarios (originating in the text) and exercises with resolution suggestions
• Content exam questions with answers for a content review
• Checklists for all skills in printed form
• A CD-ROM, packaged with every textbook, contains checklists for all skills

WHAT DISTINGUISHES CLINICAL NURSING SKILLS

Its all-inclusive, clear, and concise format that teaches the student to:

• Learn each skill from basic to advanced in a contextual framework.
• Understand the theoretical concepts that serve as a foundation for skills.
• Apply this knowledge to a clinical situation with a "client need" focus.
• Use critical thinking to evaluate the outcome of the skill and consider unexpected outcomes.
• Appreciate cultural diversity principles as they apply to client situations.
• Validate clinical skills by applying evidence based nursing practice data and studies.
• Function in, and adapt to, the professional role by understanding management responsibilities.

Our primary goal in writing Clinical Nursing Skills, 6th edition, is to produce a relevant, useful, and comprehensive text that is adaptable to various programs and learning needs of students. Further, the authors hope that faculty will find this textbook a valuable teaching tool and reference for clinical practice.