Brunner & Suddarth’s Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing 14th Edition

Book Preface

The 1st edition of Brunner & Suddarth’s Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing was published in 1964 under the leadership of Lillian Sholtis Brunner and Doris Smith Suddarth. Lillian and Doris pioneered a medicalsurgical nursing textbook that has become a trusted learning resource.

Lillian and Doris chose Suzanne Smeltzer and Brenda Bare as their successors. For several decades, Suzanne and Brenda continued the legacy of medical-surgical nursing excellence established by Lillian and Doris, meticulously supervising all updates and revisions for subsequent editions of this textbook. Suzanne and Brenda, in turn, served as our mentors for several editions of this textbook and have passed that legacy of excellence on to us. The result of the seamless and meticulous succession planning for editorship of this textbook is this new 14th edition.
Medical-surgical nursing has significantly advanced since 1964 but continues to be strongly influenced by the expansion of a host of other disciplines and new developments in technology, as well as myriad social, cultural, economic, and environmental changes throughout the world. In today’s environment, nurses must be particularly skilled in critical thinking and clinical decision making, as well as in consulting and collaborating with other members of the multidisciplinary health care team.
Along with the challenges that today’s nurses confront, there are many opportunities to provide skilled, compassionate nursing care in a variety of health care settings, for patients in the various stages of illness, and for patients across the age continuum. At the same time, there are significant opportunities for fostering health promotion activities for individuals and groups; this is an integral part of providing nursing care.
Continuing the tradition of the first 13 editions, this 14th edition of Brunner & Suddarth’s Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing has evolved to prepare nurses to think critically and practice collaboratively within today’s challenging and complex health care delivery system. The textbook focuses on physiologic, pathophysiologic, and psychosocial concepts as they relate to nursing care, and emphasis is placed on integrating a variety of concepts from other disciplines such as nutrition, pharmacology, and gerontology. Content relative to health care needs of nursing research findings, ethical considerations, evidence-based practice bariatrics, prioritization, and people with disabilities has been expanded to provide opportunities for the nurse to refine clinical decision-making skills.

Organization

Brunner & Suddarth’s Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing, 14th Edition, is organized into 17 units. These units mirror those found in previous editions with the incorporation of some changes. Content was updated throughout all units, with cross-references to specific chapters included as appropriate. Units 1 through 4 cover core concepts related to medical-surgical nursing practice. Units 5 through 16 discuss adult health conditions that are treated medically or surgically. Each of these units is structured in the following way to better facilitate comprehension:
The first chapter in the unit covers assessment and includes a review of normal anatomy and physiology of the body system being discussed.

Subsequent chapters in the unit cover management of specific disorders. Pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, assessment and diagnostic findings, medical management, and nursing management are presented. Nursing Process sections, provided for selected conditions, clarify and expand on the nurse’s role in caring for patients with these conditions.

Special Features

When caring for patients, nurses assume many different roles, including practitioner, educator, advocate, and researcher. Many of the features in this textbook have been developed to help nurses fulfill these varied roles.
Key updates to practice-oriented features in the 14th edition include new unit-opening Case Studies with QSEN Competency Focus—a feature that highlights a competency from the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Institute that is applicable to the case study and poses questions for students to consider about relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs). Quality and Safety Nursing Alerts, Genetics in Nursing Practice charts, Ethical Dilemma charts, and Home Care Checklist charts offer updated formats and information.

The textbook also provides pedagogical features developed to help readers engage and learn critical content. Concept Mastery Alerts continue to clarify fundamental nursing concepts to improve the reader’s understanding of potentially confusing topics, as identified by Misconception Alerts in Lippincott’s Adaptive Learning Powered by prepU. Data from hundreds of actual students using this program in medical-surgical courses across the United States identified common misconceptions for the authors to clarify in this feature. An enhanced suite of online, interactive multimedia resources is also highlighted with icons placed in text near relevant topics. New to this suite of resources in this edition are Unfolding Patient Stories (case study vignettes) based on vSim for Nursing patients.

Read the User’s Guide that follows the Preface for a full explanation and visual representation of all special features. See also the “Special
Charts in This Book” and “Case Studies in This Book” sections of this front matter for the location of these items in the text.