Overview

Editors:

Margaret McMillan
Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle, NSW

Jane Conway
Organisational Education, Learning and Development, NSCCH, NSW

Advances in Contemporary Nurse Recruitment and Retention, considers the possible and probable reasons for the nursing profession's world-wide crisis in recruitment and retention.

This crisis, widely recognized as involving 'the worst nursing shortage in the last 50 years' (Hodges et al 2002), is having a significant and negative impact on health care and the capacities of health care systems around the world to respond appropriately, safely and effectively to the health needs of the individuals, groups and communities they serve.

These refereed research reports and literature reviews examine the significant challenges for practitioners working in such a climate, including:

• Accessibility and sustainability of quality nursing services
• Human resource management strategies for the retention of nurses
• Access, equity, quality and viability of professional nursing services

Nursing's future is inextricably, and rightly so, bound to society's future and the future of health care (Bezold et al. 1999: 8). So securing the future of nursing through effective recruitment and retention is imperative, making this special issue vital reading for the health care profession as a whole.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD: Nurse recruitment and retention: Imperatives of imagining the future and taking a proactive stance — Megan-Jane Johnstone

EDITORIAL: Getting into nursing: Recruiting for contemporary practice — Jane Conway and Margaret McMillan

Contextualizing nurse education in Israel: Sociodemography, labor market dynamics and professional training — Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli

Challenges facing internationalisation of nursing practice, nurse education and nursing workforce in Australia — Vicki Parker and Margaret McMillan

The perceptions of high school careers advisers regarding nursing: An Australian study — Jennie King, Katherine Hardie and Jane Conway

Fast-track for fast times: Catching and keeping Generation Y in the nursing workforce — Kim Walker

EDITORIAL: Being in nursing: Dealing with contemporary practice - Jane Conway and Margaret McMillan

Belongingness: A montage of nursing students’ stories of their clincial placement experiences — Tracy Levett-Jones, Judith Lathlean, Margaret McMillan and Isabel Higgins

The contribution of the Patient Support Assistant to direct patient care: An exploration of nursing and PSA role perceptions — Jane Conway and Mark Kearin

Human resource management strategies for the retention of nurses in acute care settings in hospitals in Australia — Pamela Hogan,Lorna Moxham and Trudy Dwyer

EDITORIAL: Staying in nursing: Sustainability of contemporary practice — Jane Conway and Margaret McMillan

Returning to nursing practice: A learning journey — Carolyn Elwin

Clinical leadership: Using observations of care to focus risk management and quality improvement activities in the clinical setting — Lorraine Ferguson, Judy Calvert, Marilyn Davie, Mark Fallon, Nada Fred,
Vicki Gersbach and Lynn Sinclair

Exploring the value of dignity in the work-life of nurses — Jane Lawless and Cheryle Moss

Aging, experienced nurses: Their value and needs — Dorcas Fitzgerald