Medical Surgical Nursing- Assessment and Management of Clinical Problems Description:

Medical Surgical Nursing: Assessment and Management of Clinical Problems review:
5 stars (Excellent Medical-Surgical Resource for Nurses) - It took me almost two months to deeply appreciate this book. I must admit that I disliked the book initially, much like several of the other reviewers listed here. However, after one of my classmates in our Nursing Refresher Course raved about the book's nursing care plans, I took a deeper look at the material and was thrilled by the comprehensiveness and timeliness of the information presented. For example, the chapter on Alzheimer's disease and dementia contained information about diagnostic tests that is often only found in neurology textbooks intended for physicians. When I worked for a neurologist, the only resources I had for very specific diagnostic studies were the Mayo Clinic's diagnostic studies manual and the physician's neurology textbooks, some of which were several years old.



Overall, I believe this book serves as an excellent resource for pathophysiology, diagnostic studies, and nursing care plans. The tables and illustrations are beautiful, user friendly, and highly informative. Each chapter is organized according to the nursing process, which focuses on critical thinking and problem solving.



Don't delay in adding this textbook to your nursing library. This textbook is a great resource for nurses working in hospitals, doctors offices, clinics, wound care, patient education, and public health nursing. There is also an excellent section in the chapter on emergency care situations that covers agents of bioterrorism, which is very useful to nurses working in trauma centers and the military.


2 stars (and thus the nursing students speak. . . . ) - I just graduated from the second largest nursing school in Texas and we used this textbook for two semesters, (the school has a contract to use only Mosby textbooks). I, along with many of my fellow classmates, hated this textbook for a number of reasons. First, I found the content to be "wordy," confusing, and often times contradictory. The bottom line is that it's a poorly written text. There are grammatical errors throughout the text that made me absolutely cringe and there was not a week that didn't go by that we didn't have to approach our professors asking them "what are they trying to say here?" In fact, some of us were thinking of contacting Mosby publishing and asking them to have a non-medical English professor proof-read the text before publication. It's interesting to note that we found this same problem with other Mosby textbooks: Pediatric, maternity, foundations, etc. The only time we didn't have a problem with the text was when we did our psych rotation. The Mosby Psych text was not ready and so we had to go with another publisher: Saunders, which was far superior to Mosby. In fact, I asked my clinical professor why the school didn't use Saunders and that's when I learned that the school was contracted with Mosby. Damn Politics! I would go as far to say that the main reason I made it through Nursing school was because I went out and bought the Saunders (and Lippincott) textbooks. Anytime I didn't understand what Mosby was trying to say (which was often!) I would refer to Saunders or Lippincott and the light-bulb would always come on. Bottom line: avoid Mosby if you can.
1 stars (Multiple inaccurate answers) - This study guide definitely needed more attention before it was published. I also have the 5th edition study guide and there are many mistakes that appear to be a lack of proofreading before publishing this newer edition. Many incongruencies here. I would recommend the 5th edition if you want to be certain of the tool you are using.