Personal and professional values of healthcare practitioners influence their clinical decisions. Understanding these values for individuals and across healthcare professions can help improve patient-centred decision-making by individual practitioners and interprofessional teams, respectively. We aimed to identify these values and integrate them…

The article elaborates and discusses the relation between professional college programmes in social work, nursing and primary school teaching and professional work in institutions, hospitals and schools. Empirical data from bachelor students in the beginning (first year) and the end (third year) of their programmes and from candidates three years…

This publication consists of 73 figures correlated to short summaries that present an overview of employment in the health care field from 1993 to 1998. Most of the information is from public sources. The statistics focus on registered nurses, but also include laboratory technicians, licensed practical nurses, medical scientists, occupational…

The concept of commitment needs to be clarified to understand how nurses manage their multiple commitments: organizational, work, professional, job, patient, and personal. (SK)

Staff members of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission worked jointly to establish a task force to investigate and develop recommendations for addressing the workforce shortages in nursing and allied health in Tennessee. The investigation established that Tennessee already has a workforce shortage of…

The language and history of nursing have labeled it women's work, influencing legal decisions and raising a significant recruitment/retention barrier for men: the job title and image. Proactive recruitment from target groups, role models, and use of appropriate media are strategies to redress the sex imbalance in nursing. (SK)

This essay examines ethical considerations in the nurse patient relationship, in particular the relationship between "professional morality" and the nurse's professional identity in the role of advocate for doctors, patients, and hospitals. A discussion of ethics and professionals explores professional ethics, the need for such ethics,…

An important potential contribution to the efficient use of the health workforce, is the possibility of "skill mix" changes. "Skill mix" is a relatively broad term which can refer to the mix of staff in the workforce or the demarcation of roles and activities among different categories of staff. Most of the policy attention on…

Based on the trend toward greater reliance on new health practitioners, this book focuses on the nurse practitioner and the physician's assistant. The first of four sections describes the nurse practitioner and the physician's assistant and what their functions are in the delivery of health care services. Discussing why new health practitioners…

This report presents recommendations of the Pew Health Professions Commission regarding changes in health care education. It identifies 17 competencies that practitioners should be prepared for by the year 2005. Recommendations include: expand access to effective care; provide contemporary clinical care; emphasize primary care; participate in…

The reasons a skill mix among health workers is important to health care systems were examined. The analysis was based on a review of studies conducted primarily in the United States. "Skill mix" was defined as the mix of posts, grades, or occupations in an organization and the combinations of activities or skills needed for each job…