Margretta Madden Styles.

In recognition of the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife initiative, AJN will periodically highlight the works of key nursing leaders. Sometimes it will be in the form of articles from our archives, at other times it will be excerpts from or summaries of nurses' work with related commentary. Here, courtesy of Margretta Madden Styles's daughter, we've reprinted Styles's "Declaration of Belief About the Nature and Purpose of Nursing," originally published in her book, On Nursing: Toward a New Endowment (C.V. Mosby Company, 1982). We hope it will inspire you.

Nurse presence enhanced through Equus.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was for nurses to experience equine-assisted learning and for them to describe their being in the moment with their horse. The aims of the study were to assist clinicians in recognizing their ability and skill at being present--that is, calm and centered--as they engage with horses and to determine if interaction with horses is a valid representation in recognizing presence in the participants. DESIGN: Descriptive phenomenology was used to explore this lived experience. FINDINGS: Five themes emerged: The Experienced Novice, Present in the Moment, Discovery of Self, Team Building, and Leadership. CONCLUSIONS: Equine-assisted learning can be a meaningful venue for nurses to self-discover their ability to be present.

The national AgeWISE pilot.

AgeWISE is a 6-month nurse residency program designed to prepare hospital nurses to meet the needs of older adults, a population that comprises nearly 50% of all US hospital admissions. The goal of AgeWISE, now being piloted in 12 hospitals in the United States, is to produce a tested and refined national model for building geropalliative care capacity among hospital nurses.