Will graduate entry free nursing from the shackles of class and gender oppression?

Debates in nursing focus on the provision of good nursing care and its relation to academic status. For example, are nurses "too posh to wash" if they believe entry to the profession should require a degree, or is this a case of them having pretensions "above their station"? This article discusses the nature of oppression and its relationship to hierarchy, and concludes that nurses are oppressed through gender and socioeconomic class. It also examines the profession's social position, arguing thatthe majority of nurses identify with the most oppressed social class

"Nurses who become ACPs should not be mini-medics"

There is a pressing need to enable registered nurses to reach their full potential at higher-than-basic-registration level in clinical practice. This would fulfil two requirements: personal professional advancement and workplace clinical need

Getting the most out of your clinical placement.

This article discusses what to expect from clinical placements, what you will learn, techniques to enhance your experience, and handling a placement that is not going well

Using specialist nurse mentors to boost placement capacity.

Mentors play a pivotal role in assessing and supporting nursing students. This can be rewarding but stressful. With increasing numbers of students requiring clinical placements, ward mentors are becoming overloaded. This article examines a new method of supporting senior nursing students in placement while alleviating the pressures on overworked mentors. It recommends the use of specialist nurses to support pre-registration students through a structured learning pathway. The scheme also opens up new areas for clinical allocations. This is a summary: the full paper can be accessed at nursingtimes.net

Are newly qualified nurses prepared for practice?

While many people find starting a new job stressful, the transition from student to newly qualified nurse comes with additional pressures, as being unprepared could harm patients

Developing a collaborative research partnership.

This article details a collaborative research project undertaken in an acute NHS foundation trust, in partnership with a local higher education institution (HEI). The article identifies enablers and challenges to working in this type of collaboration and discusses the implications for the development of similar projects

Does the risk of reprisal prevent nurses blowing the whistle on bad practice?

Despite the introduction of legislation to protect people who report poor or unsafe practice, whistleblowing can still have serious consequences for nurses

Supporting newly qualified nurses in the UK: a systematic literature review

Aim: This is a systematic literature review of the existing published research related to the development of preceptorship to support newly qualified nurses in the United Kingdom (UK). Background: It has been known for some time that newly qualified nurses experience a period of unsettling transition at the point of registration. In the UK, preceptorship has been the professional body’s recommended solution to this for over 20 years. Data Sources: Searches were made of the CINAHL Plus and MEDLINE databases. Review Methods: A systematic review was carried out in August 2011. Twelve separate searches were conducted generating 167 articles, of which 24 were finally reviewed. Papers were critically reviewed and relevant data were extracted and synthesised using an approach based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis ( PRISMA). Results and Discussion: A results table is presented of the twenty-four sources generated by the systematic search. Three themes were identified from the empirical evidence base: ‘Managerial Support Framework’; ‘Recruitment and Retention’; and ‘Reflection and Critical Thinking in Action’;. Conclusion: There is strong evidence that the newly qualified nurse benefits from a period of supported and structured preceptorship, which translates to improved recruitment and retention for the employing organisations. Recommendations for Further Research and Practice: The existing literature provides an evidence base upon which to construct a preceptorship programme and a means by which to measure its efficacy and monitor its future development. Case study research projects should be considered for future preceptorship programmes in order to find the most effective methods of delivery.Research funded by Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Trus

A preceptorship toolkit for nurse managers, teams and healthcare organisations

The transition from student to newly qualified nurse can be challenging. A period of preceptorship is recommended to support newly qualified nurses in their new work environment, and to give them time to adapt and gain confidence. Researchers have developed a toolkit based on previous research that contains several resources that nurse managers, teams and organisations can use to develop and improve preceptorship for newly qualified nurses. The toolkit includes an organisational support tool, a managerial support framework, a supernumerary time tool and a local culture of support tool. This article describes these resources and gives an example of how the toolkit can be adapted locally.Chesterfield Royal Hospital funded the original research project upon which this is base

SCISAT-1 ACE Mission C&DH Unit Development

The SCISAT-1 Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) Mission is a part of the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA’s) space science program, to support ongoing research in the areas of solarterrestrial relations, atmospheric sciences and space astronomy. Bristol Aerospace Limited is the CSA’s Spacecraft Prime Contractor for the ACE Mission. The ACE spacecraft will be launched on a Pegasus XL vehicle in mid-2002, co-manifested with a NASA spacecraft. A Control and Data Handling (C&DH) Unit is being developed by Bristol for the ACE Mission. This C&DH Unit will be responsible for all onboard command, control, monitoring and science data recording. This unit is being developed to support a range of Canadian small science missions, from Smallsats to Microsats. The unit is low power and light weight, and features a rad-tolerant core to assure reliable operation in a single string architecture. The C&DH Unit is comprised of a Controller Card (CC), Data Handling Card (DHC), Input/Output Card (IOC) and a Power Supply Card (PSC). Each card is housed in its own aluminum frame, and the frames are integrated into a vertical stack. The unit is expected to operate with 7 Watts orbit average power and uses a UTMC 80C196 16-bit processor running at 16 MHz to manage the satellite operations and perform attitude control. Mass storage of 1.5 Gbytes and CCSDS variable-rate telemetry up to 5 Mbits/sec are provided. This paper will present an overview of the ACE Mission and a description of the C&DH Unit, describing its architecture, hardware/software partitioning, FPGA functionality and key performance specifications