About 40 years ago, Luther Christman, PhD, RN, FAAN, wrote about an autonomous nursing organization where nurses would be empowered to control their nursing practice. His idea was an early framework for shared governance. As a young doctoral student, I explored shared governance as a concept; I became increasingly frustrated trying to understand what it was. Many organizations adopted what they...

PURPOSE To assess the plaque removal efficacy of an oscillating-rotating power brush relative to a newly-introduced sonic power brush. METHODS This study used a randomized, examiner-blind, single-center, two-treatment, parallel group 4-week design. Subjects with pre-existing plaque scores of at least 1.75 on the Turesky Modification of the Quigley-Hein Plaque Index (TMQHPI) were evaluated for...

The challenges physician leaders confront today call to mind Odysseus' challenge to steer his fragile ship successfully between Scylla and Charybdis. The modern Scylla takes the form of ever-increasing pressures to provide more resources for professional liability, compliance, patient satisfaction, central administration, and a host of other demands. The modern Charybdis takes the form of ever-...

UK government policy is encouraging healthcare staff to blur traditional roles, in the drive to increase joint working between practitioners. However, there is currently a lack of clarity regarding the impact that changes to traditional working practice might have on staff delivering the services, or on patient care. In this article, we report findings from three qualitative case studies examin...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the degree of influence of the organizational identification on the experiences of pleasure and suffering of women who are members of the nursing staff of two general hospitals in Belo Horizonte. METHOD A quantitative study was conducted with 97 nurses and 414 nursing technicians chosen by convenience in their workplaces. We used a self-administered questionnaire containi...

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been extensively proposed in the last decade as a means to reform, modernize, and reshape national health systems around the globe. In so doing, it inevitably changes work practices, and may have longer term consequences for health care professions. This paper considers how ICT may shape the professional future of community pharmacists by drawi...

Nurse educators yearn to teach in zestful workplaces where faculty and administrators work and play well together. Even when their interactions with professional colleagues are stressful, many still believe that zestful academic workplaces are possible. How can educators bridge the gap when a zestful ideal becomes a stressful reality? Since some report that the quality of their professional rel...