Challenging Authority: The Impact of Practicing Nursing in the Legislature.

How does challenging authority look? This article describes two steps taken to prepare for and engage in challenges to existing laws. The first step is use of the nursing process to help structure deliberations about when to pursue, justify, and target a challenge to existing law to create desired outcomes. The second step is the important process of building the case for change and the broad base of support needed to push against resistance to change.

Confronting the barriers to health care reform.

Reforming health care is made more difficult when attention is successfully directed away from the root causes of increasing health care disparity and inflation. This article challenges nurses to accept an active role in health care reform as a part of professional responsibility.