Nursing prof., outgoing dean co-edit book

Nursing Professor Linda Aiken and outgoing Nursing Dean Claire Fagin have co-edited a new book on nursing and health-care issues in the 1990s. Charting Nursing's Future: Agenda for the 1990s is an update on the nursing profession's accomplishments in the 1980s and a plan for its future, according to Aiken. The book, which is currently being distributed nationwide, is an attempt to "establish an agenda for what the nursing profession needs to do in the 90s." Fagin wrote one chapter on cost effectiveness and co-wrote a chapter on reforming nurses' national health plans with Pamela Maraldo from the National League for Nursing. Aiken's chapter outlined the challenges the nursing profession will face in the future. In addition to Fagin and Aiken, 10 other University faculty members contributed chapters to the book. Fagin said the book will probably be used as a text for courses on current health care issues and as a suplementary text in other courses. "I think it will actually be very heavily used," Fagin said. "It covers every major issue facing us today in health care. Everything we're talking about today is in this book." Psychiatric nursing, health insurance, home care, and health care for the homeless and other high-risk people are some of the topics covered in the new book. In the book's preface the editors state that the underlying theme of working in the public interest links together the different topics and issues covered in the book. This book is the second in a series of nursing texts written and edited by nurses. Aiken edited the first book, Nursing in the 1980s: Crises, Opportunities, Challenges. Many of the predictions made in the first book, such as a reform of nursing homes and the continuing shortage of nurses, occurred in the 1980s. The new book, which was published by J.B. Lippincott and Company, costs $28, and is expected to hit bookstore shelves soon.

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