The Nurse's Reality Shift: Using History to Transform the Future

Despite dramatic scientific and technological advances since the advent of professional nursing in the 19th century, a close analysis shows that modern nurses face many of the same challenges as earlier nurses, including: inconsistent educational and licensing standards; incomplete or inconsistent facility-based training, including technology; excessive patient loads; staffing shortages; long shifts and overtime; colleague bullying. These and a host of other issues continue to strain front-line nurses and threaten retention rates. While analyzing the past and using modern survey techniques to give voice to current issues, The Nurse's Reality Shift sheds light on why nurses are where they are and, more importantly, how nurses can approach the future in a different way. This book asks the hard questions the nursing profession must answer to move past its recurring challenges and offers practical solutions and a road map for moving forward.

Leslie Neal-Boylan, PdD, CRRN, APRN-BC, FNP, FAAN, is Associate Dean and Professor at Quinnipiac University School of Nursing in Hamden, Connecticut. A registered nurse for 35 years, Neal-Boylan has authored or edited nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications, including eight books on nursing. A faculty member and practicing clinical nurse, she has focused her research on the nursing workforce.