Understanding Synthesis Across Disciplines to Improve Nursing Education.

Nursing students must learn higher-order thinking skills of analysis and synthesis to manage complex data for decision making in healthcare. Teaching synthesis, however, is challenging and elusive due to lack of understanding of the concept and an explicit pedagogy for teaching it. A qualitative, multi-phased research project was designed to gain understanding of what synthesis is, how professionals acquire synthesis skills, and how to best teach synthesis.

Quality Improvement Investigation for Head and Neck Stabilization in Radiotherapy Using Setup Tattoos.

Purpose: Highly complex planning techniques and delivery methods in the treatment of head and neck cancer require an advanced level of accuracy and reproducibility.

Aim: To determine if the addition of tattoos placed on the chest inferior to the CIVCO Vac-Lok stabilization system improves accuracy and reproducibility of patient set up.

Methods: Eighteen patients with head and neck cancer were studied.