Book Reviews
Accident and Emergency Nursing, fourth edition
Walsh, M. and Kent, A
ISBN: 0-750643-17-X 2001 209 pages Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford
Kathryn Zeitz
State Nursing Officer (SA) St John Ambulance; PhD Candidate, Department of Clinical Nursing, University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA
Accident and Emergency Nursing is a generalist emergency nursing text that is different from traditional emergency books. Where most emergency texts place sociological and psychological discussions at the end of a book here they are a substantive component of the first section, emphasising that these are not in addition to practice but are core elements. It is a nice change to see grief management at the beginning of a text rather than in the last chapter.
Throughout the text, Walsh and Kent, the authors have drawn together a large base of evidence to support their discussions and descriptions. The last chapter provides an overview of evidence based practice. The text is well set out, comprehensive and easy to read.
The book is tailored at a United Kingdom audience. Not only in relation to terminology such as 'wellington boots' and '999 calls' but also in reference to process and legal aspects, NHS trusts, UK Mental Health Act and English, Welsh and Scottish statistics. The authors also make some assumptions regarding the terminology for example that all readers would know what ABCD of resuscitation means.
The text reflects a traditional view of the nurse and medical officer role in the emergency department. A&E nurses are referred to as males, a nurse's role is only to assist intubation and intravenous access, the medical officer may give permission for the nurse to defibrillate and no discussion of the nurse listening to a patients chest as part of patient assessment. There is no discussion about the vital role of teamwork and the need, at times, for some role crossover in emergencies and busy periods. This is offset by a brief discussion on the role of nurse practitioners but the emphasis is on ordering X-rays or prescribing the post-coital contraception.
Clinically the book is comprehensive showing the authors strengths such as an excellent section on wound management and a large section on Plaster of Paris application. More recent changes to practice have not been discussed such as the role of needle decompression of pneumothorax, acute angioplasty in the management of myocardial infarction and immediate defibrillation without commencing CPR.
This book would be very useful as a basic text A&E text as it gives a good overview of emergency nursing and highlights the diversity of emergency practice. There are discussions on cultural, legal and ethical aspects of practice, health promotion and 'difficult patients no body else wants'.
As an overall bookshelf reference for emergency complaints other texts may be more useful.
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