Looking is not seeing and listening is not hearing: effect of an intervention to enhance auditory skills of graduate-entry nursing students.

Inspection/observation and listening/auscultation are essential skills for health care providers. Given that observational and auditory skills take time to perfect, there is concern about accelerated students' ability to attain proficiency in a timely manner. This article describes the impact of music auditory training (MAT) for nursing students in an accelerated master's entry program on their competence in detecting heart, lung, and bowel sounds.

Integrative review of graduate entry programs in nursing.

In this integrative review, the authors report on, summarize, and analyze research conducted on non-nurse college graduates enrolled in master's degree programs in nursing in the United States and Canada, leading to preparation for advanced practice nurse roles. This review demonstrated that non-nurse college graduates successfully develop into registered nurses and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) or certified nurse-midwives (CNMs). What is conspicuously absent in the literature is articulation of the process whereby college graduates become nurses and APRNs or CNMs.

A meta-synthesis of women's postincarceration experiences.

Objective: To integrate the findings of qualitative studies about the experiences of women reentering the community postincarceration.

Data Sources: Qualitative studies were identified using library databases from nursing and other disciplines, including Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), MedLine, JSTOR, SCOPUS, WilsonWeb, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. The keywords women, prisoners, incarceration, community re-integration, re-entry, qualitative research, and narratives were searched in all databases in articles published in the past decade.

Creating a room of our own.

In today's busy healthcare arena, nurses may not have the time or energy to take advantage of advancement on the clinical ladder. The decision was made to create a "room of our own," where nurses who aspire for this recognition could develop and refine their portfolio and be supported in the skills necessary to prepare their folders for advancement. In this article, the authors described the curriculum, challenges, and lessons learned in creating a portfolio development program for nurses' advancement.

Looking is not seeing: using art to improve observational skills.

This project evaluated the effects of an art museum experience on the observational skills of nursing students. Half of a class of non-nurse college graduates entering an accelerated master's degree program (n = 34) were assigned to a museum experience, whereas the other half (n = 32) received traditional teaching methods. Using original works of art, students participated in focused observational experiences to visually itemize everything noted in the art piece, discriminate visual qualities, recognize patterns, and cluster observations.

What newly licensed registered nurses have to say about their first experiences.

To understand factors that promote retention of Newly Licensed Registered Nurses (NLRNs) and those that contribute to turnover, a survey of a national sample of NLRNs was conducted. This article describes the content analysis of 612 NLRN comments about their work life. Using Krippendorff's technique, 5 themes were discovered.

Narrative criticism: a systematic approach to the analysis of story.

Research reveals that writing about one's experiences offers an individual the opportunity to improve function, develop insight, and foster growth. Storytelling and story writing are pedagogical tools used frequently in practice professions. It is reasonable to see these writings as a rich source for research.