Developing expertise in critical care nursing

Developing Expertise in Critical Care Nursing examines the development of professional expertise in critical care nursing, based on extensive research in clinical practice. It offers a repertoire of learning and assessment methods that enable practitioners to grow their own expertise and foster developments in others.Developing Expertise in Critical Care Nursing will be of interest to practitioners who aspire to advanced level practice in critical care and to all who facilitate this process. It debates the characteristics of expert practice and practice development and examines the acquisition of core skills, and career development in critical care using a role transition model.

Chapter 1: Defining critical care.

Chapter 2: Defining expertise and the process of acquiring expertise: towards a contemporary definition of advanced practice.

Chapter 3: Pre registration students.

Chapter 4: Inducting the newcomer to critical care: developing competency based frameworks to enable practitioners to be effective in the critical care settings.

Chapter 5: What is competence?.

Chapter 6: The types of roles that have emerged in critical care and the way in which they have evolved.

Chapter 7: Developing benchmarks for expert / advanced roles in critical care practice.

Chapter 8: Research and development

Critical care nurses (intensive care, high dependance care, coronary care, A & E care, and theatre nursing), lecturers and practice developers.

Professor Julie Scholes is Principal Lecturer in Research and Practice Development at the University of Brighton, with a national and international reputation in research and critical care.