Aldo Leopold's land health from a resilience point of view: self-renewal capacity of social-ecological systems.

Health approaches to ecology have a strong basis in Aldo Leopold's thinking, and contemporary ecohealth in turn has a strong philosophical basis in Leopold. To commemorate the 125th anniversary of Leopold's birth (1887-1948), we revisit his ideas, specifically the notions of stewardship (land ethic), productive use of ecosystems (land), and ecosystem renewal. We focus on Leopold's perspective on the self-renewal capacity of the land, as understood in terms of integrity and land health, from the contemporary perspective of resilience theory and ecological theory more generally.

The going home initiative: getting critical care patients home with hospice.

Although considerable effort is being directed at providing patients and their families with a "good death," most patients in intensive care units, if given the choice, would prefer to die at home. With little guidance from the literature, the palliative care committee of an intensive care unit developed guidelines to get patients home from the intensive care unit to die. In the past few years, the unit has transferred many patients home with hospice care, much to the delight of their families.

How much teamwork exists between nurses and junior doctors in the intensive care unit?

Aims: The aim of this study was to measure the degree of similarity of attitudes on collaboration between nurses and junior doctors (known as residents in the United States) in the ICU.

Background: Existing research shows that nurses and physicians view the amount of teamwork they experience in the ICU differently though the attitudes of junior doctors and critical care nurses on collaboration remain unknown.

Methods: Thirty-one nurses and 46 junior doctors completed a modified version of the Baggs Collaboration and Satisfaction about Care Decisions instrument during 2006-2007 in a 24 bed medical/surgical ICU in the northeastern United States.