Use of a Delphi technique to prioritize clinical nursing research needs.

School of nursing faculty and nursing service personnel at an academic medical center in the South, collaboratively using a Delphi method, were able to prioritize the top three unit based clinical nursing research needs. The benefits were evident as research conducted at the staff level linked the research efforts with the quality improvement efforts on the Labor, Delivery and OB Receiving Units. The Delphi method, a consensus building technique, offered a clear, concise, accurate and non-threatening approach for staff nurses to participate in research.

Mississippi public health nurses and midwives: a partnership that worked.

At the turn of the century maternal and infant mortality rates were high in this southern state. Untrained midwives conducted many of the deliveries. Initial support for locating and training midwives by public health nurses was provided by the American Red Cross and the United States Public Health Services. Later, funding from a philanthropic organization (Rockefeller International Foundation) provided a mechanism that brought Mississippi public health nurses and midwives to a partnership that endured for over a half a century, and contributed to better maternal-infant health care outcomes for that state.

Research: the bridge to collaboration.

A faculty-staff research fair was used by a school of nursing and university hospital at a large Southern medical center as a way of promoting collaboration between nursing education and service. The end results were these: a nurse-theorist "room" in the school of nursing; development of collaborative studies; subsequent presentation of posters originally prepared for the fair at 12 local, 13 state, six regional, and three national meetings. The overwhelming positive response by participants verified that research could serve as a natural bridge to promote collaboration between research, education, and service.

Granny midwives in Mississippi: career and birthing practices.

In this study career and birthing practices of Mississippi granny midwives who held permits and practiced in the early 1980's are reported. Leininger's (1978, 1985) mini ethnonursing method was used as the primary research approach. Although other authors have studied granny midwives in the South using alternate research methods such as Mongeau (1973) in North Carolina using analysis of historical documents and field research; Campbell (1946) in Georgia using field study research; Kroska (1985) in Alabama using mini-ethnography, to date no one has systematically studied granny midwives and their practices in Mississippi. Patterns and themes from verbatim and record analysis data indicate that the Mississippi granny midwives were practitioners who were called by God to practice. The majority had a mother or aunt who had also been a midwife. They used an oligopolistic market approach combined with altruism and care. They practiced family centered maternity care while using three practice modalities of folk, professional and motherwit for enacting their practice. Although their practice was externally regimented, they practiced in an autonomous way as their individual judgment dictated.

The nurse as the first line of defense against periodontal disease.

Pregnancy gingivitis is one of the most frequent forms of periodontal disease seen by nurses. Nurses can be an invaluable "first line of defense" against this malady. A basic dental diagnostic procedure for the nurse is presented in this paper.