Whatever your interests and motivations, nursing is certain to be a career that rewards, challenges and inspires you. It requires the seamless blending of theoretical and technical knowledge with a way of being and behaving (moral comportment), leading to clinical wisdom or deep understanding that supports the highest possible quality of care for individuals, families and communities. We present a range of nursing knowledge and perspectives that are important for professional nursing practice in contemporary Australian healt hcare, but encourage you to engage in your own reflections about what it means to be and act as a nurse, with the aim of discovering and nurturing your personal passion for nursing (Benner et al. 2010, Gottlieb & Gottlieb 2012, p. 4). This opening chapter sets the scene for your undergraduate nursing journey. We welcome you to the wonderful, dynamic and diverse profession of nursing and encourage some initial thinking about what nursing is, why you have chosen this career and the sort of nurse you hope to be. We also outline the purpose, structure and features of this book, and introduce you to the key concepts and ideas underpinning your learning journey.

Good nursing practice is based on evidence and undertaking a community health needs assessment is a means to providing the evidence to guide community nursing practice. A community health needs assessment is simply a process that examines the health status and social needs of a population. It may be conducted at a whole-of-community level, a sub-community level or even a sub-system level. Nursing practice frequently involves gathering data and assessing individuals or families to determine appropriate nursing interventions. This concept is transferable to an identified community, when the community itself is viewed as being the client. This chapter focuses on exploring the principles and processes involved in undertaking a community health needs assessment.

Good nursing practice is based on evidence and undertaking a community health needs assessment is a means to providing the evidence to guide community nursing practice. A community health needs assessment is simply a process that examines the health status and social needs of a population. It may be conducted at a whole-of-community level, a sub-community level or even a sub-system level. Nursing practice frequently involves gathering data and assessing individuals or families to determine appropriate nursing interventions. This concept is transferable to an identified community, when the community itself is viewed as being the client. This chapter focuses on exploring the principles and processes involved in undertaking a community health needs assessment.

This book has considered ethics in the context of human vulnerability. We are vulnerable because we can be affected by things across the life span, and we can be affected by things because we are physical beings – part of the world around us and subject to the passage of time. Consequently, a life can come to an end at any time. For this reason, death is not only completely normal, but inevitable. Nevertheless, death is typically regarded as something regrettable. Issues of personhood and autonomy lie at the centre of bioethical debates about the ending of human life, especially where this involves abortion and euthanasia. Against the backdrop of these issues, this chapter provides an overview of the main legal and ethical considerations relating to abortion and euthanasia.

This chapter addresses the topic of information we receive about or from patients and introduces the concepts of privacy and confidentiality in relation to the management of patient information. In this chapter we also outline legal requirements for reporting harmful conduct of health professionals and others. Providing excellent nursing care for a patient requires that each nurse involved in the patient’s care acquire relevant information from the patient (or a representative) concerning the patient’s symptoms, their lifestyle, their medications, their concerns and their experiences. Therefore, nurses routinely see, hear, read and record things about other people that are not normally discussed outside the health-care setting, and have privileged access to matters of patient privacy. This brings with it certain legal and moral obligations. Therefore, managing information about patients is one of the most important ethical and legal roles nurses play in health care and, owing to modern technology (as we discuss below), it is arguably one of the greatest challenges faced by professional practice.

This Chapter will focus on one of the main parts of the civil law that is relevant for nurses: the law of negligence. The law of negligence is a part of the civil law that allows a person to bring legal proceedings against another person to correct a wrong or harm that the other person has done to them. Usually the person who has been harmed (the plaintiff) will seek payment of damages in compensation for their injury from the person whose act or omission caused the harm (the defendant). This Chapter will outline the key parts of the law of negligence. The particular focus of the Chapter will be on the special rules that have developed in the law of negligence in relation to health care professionals, including nurses. By understanding how the law will apply to things nurses do that cause people harm, it should be possible for nurses to better avoid acting negligently.

In examining the challenges facing the nurse in the area of aged care some of the philosophical and ethical aims of this book are most acutely demonstrated. In general, in advanced capitalist societies such as Australia, there is a tendency to regard ageing in a negative light. The importance that society attaches to productivity as a measure of value, and the decline of traditional family and community structures, have seen societal attitudes towards the aged shift, from one of respect to a more general disregard or devaluing of the possible contributions of the elderly. It is in this context that the role of the nurse as a builder of capability and a supporter of autonomy becomes most significant. While there are limits to the therapeutic benefit that a nurse can provide to a person’s physical health, nurses can play a substantial role in supporting and promoting the exercise of autonomy in the face of physical changes, especially in the context of ageing.

The focus of this chapter is culture and developing nursing care that is culturally sensitive and culturally safe. To many nurses in Australian culture, the idea of concealing the truth seems improper. Truthfulness underpins our practices of informed consent and also forms the basis of clear communication and trust in the nurse–patient relationship. However, in different cultures there is a common expectation that patients will not be told of certain diagnoses, and that the burden of knowledge and decision-making is delegated to family members. Placing a very high value on truthfulness and the right to know assumes a desire to know the truth on the part of the patient and the community. Not all people or communities hold this desire. In such cases, imposing Western values would be paternalistic, overbearing and disempowering, and would therefore constitute culturally insensitive care. The presence of different cultures in our community brings about social diversity and requires culturally sensitive and culturally safe care from nurses and midwives.