Advancing the education of nurses: a call for action.

The debate over the educational preparation of RNs has raged for over a century. In New York, chief nursing officers are partnering with academic colleagues and successfully implementing a model that standardizes education requirements, supports seamless transition from associate to baccalaureate degree programs, addresses financial barriers, and identifies expected outcomes of a more educated workforce. Nursing leaders are perfectly positioned to advance the educational standards of the profession in the United States.

'It depends': medical residents' perspectives on working with nurses.

OBJECTIVE: Using the theory of relational coordination, which holds that in high-pressure settings such as hospitals, high-quality communication and strong relationships are necessary for coordinated action, we sought to determine the quality of the nurse-physician relationship by examining the communication and interaction between nurses and residents from the residents' perspective. METHODS: A sample of 20 medical and surgical residents, selected by a snowball sampling technique, were interviewed about the quality of their communication and relationships with nurses in the workplace. RESULTS: Residents' responses were influenced by their perceptions of nurses' cooperativeness and competence, and their impressions of nurses' professional preparation and demeanor varied widely. Although 19 of 20 residents reported instances of poor communication or problematic relationships with nurses, most believed that this posed no significant threat to patient care because the nurses' role, as they saw it, was one of simply following orders. CONCLUSIONS: Given the strong doubts some residents expressed about nurses' cooperativeness and competence, the nursing profession should consider strengthening nursing education and clearly delineating nurses' roles and competencies.

Jamaican families.

The study of the family in the Caribbean originated with European scholars who assumed the universality of the patriarchal nuclear family and the primacy of this structure to the healthy functioning of society. Matrifocal Caribbean families thus were seen as chaotic and disorganized and inadequate to perform the essential tasks of the social system. This article provides a more current discussion of the Jamaican family. It argues that its structure is the result of the agency and adaptation of its members and not the root cause of the increasing marginalization of peoples in the developing world. The article focuses on families living in poverty and how the family structure supports essential family functions, adaptations, and survival.