The Nursing Profession: Development, Challenges, and Opportunities is designed to be a resource for those who are interested in or touched by nursing. This book is designed in part to complement the report by the Institute of Medicine on the future of nursing. Readers-whether researchers or practitioners, foundation or government officials, students, or simply lay people interested in nursing-should use this volume to gain a better understanding of the nursing profession and the issues with which those in the field and related fields are grappling. Major topics include:

• The history of nursing
• The nursing profession
• Current issues and challenges, including the nursing shortage, educating and training nurses, utilizing advanced practice nurses to their fullest, quality and cost, long-term care, community-based care, gender and power, and new areas for nursing
• A vision for the future

The book begins with a comprehensive review of the nursing field by Diana Mason, the Rudin Professor of Nursing at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, City University of New York, and former Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Nursing. Mason's chapter is followed by reprints of twenty-five of the most influential or significant articles on nursing-some of them classic pieces dating back to Florence Nightingale, others presenting more current thinking on critical issues. This kind of source material is rarely found in one place.

This important book, which complements the report by the Institute of Medicine, The Future of Nursing, opens with a comprehensive review of the nursing field by Diana J. Mason, the Rudin Professor of Nursing at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, City University of New York, and editor-in-chief emerita of the American Journal of Nursing.

The book includes a foreword by Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and contributions by Susan H. Hassmiller, the executive director, Donna Shalala, the chair, and Linda Burnes Bolton, the vice chair, respectively, of the IOM initiative that produced the report. Additionally, it contains reprints of twenty-four of the most significant articles on nursing. Some are classic pieces dating back to Florence Nightingale while others present current thinking on critical issues.

This volume gives researchers, practitioners, foundation and government officials, students, and individuals interested in nursing a better understanding of the nursing field and the vital issues with which nursing professionals must grapple. The Nursing Profession includes topics such as

• Dealing with the nursing shortage

• Educating and training nurses

• Using advanced practice registered nurses to their fullest

• Quality and cost

• Long-term and community-based care

• Thoughts on gender and power

• A vision for the future

In one comprehensive volume, the editors capture the history, the latest developments, and the current challenges in the field.