In times of health adversity the nurse has always been there, and now more than ever nurses are stepping up and out of there comfort zone to provide nursing care. Nursing shows no boundaries or favouritism, we don’t care for one more than another. In fact nurses will treat their patients like their loved ones, providing information and support into the long hours of a shift.

It is a privilege to be a nurse, invited into a person’s life at their time of need, to listen to their stories and begin to understand their pain, and to share their joy. Nurses develop a connection with their patients, to help, to empower, to change their journey with the disease.  The Health and Safety Standards of Australia highlight the partnership between nurses and consumers of health care as an important step towards best care and patient outcomes. This connection between nurses and their patient and families allows for an understanding of their health needs and information to be delivered at their level. Nurse’s enable the patient to negotiate the health system and empower them to make informed decisions about their health care.

The Acute Care Nursing textbook steps the novice nurse through theory and case studies to allow them to understand not only how to care for the patient and their family but to become critical thinkers of care provided. The book links theory to the case studies and simulation videos enabling the student to develop of clinical reasoning. The development of the text was informed by research providing a realistic link to the nurses and patients experience of health care. The use of the Australian and New Zealand Standards of Nursing as a structure provides a contemporary overview of the role of the nurse in dealing with acute medical and surgical conditions.

A nurse is a person who learns to share stories and laugh, to see pain and be able help and understand. This poem was written when I was working with young women with cancer and they shared their stories of their journeys through treatment to a new level of life and survival.

Stories from young women with cancer 

Being invited, wondering what their story will be,

Entering their world, sharing and sitting, listening and hearing

Stories of sadness, Stories of joy!

They share they remember, tears of sadness, tears of joy!

Why is it, so hard to remember what has past?

The shock and the fears are relived, it was hard, so hard to survive!

The tiredness, the nausea, trying to forget!

To remember, to survive, a new level, a reward of survival,

To be young, to be strong!

Acute Care Nursing is an essential companion that can be taken from the classroom into practice. The book is edited by Julia Gilbert and Elisabeth Coyne.