Nurse Education in Practice 10 (2010) e26

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Nurse Education in Practice

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/nepr

Book Reviews

Iggulden, H., MacDonald, C., Staniland, K. (Eds.), 2009. ClinicalSkills – The Essence of Caring. McGraw-Hill Education, OpenUniversity Press, £29.99. ISBN-13: 978-033522355-8

This is an impressively comprehensive guide to clinical skillsdrawing from the expertise and real life experiences of a varietyof contributors with health and social care backgrounds.

The key issues in Essence of Care – Patient-Focused Benchmarks(Department of Health, 2003) are utilised as chapter headings,each containing a logical flow of step by step instruction, guidingthe reader through the required anatomy and physiology of thatsubject and a thorough explanation of the nursing process ofassessment, planning, implementation and evaluation. During thechapter the reader is quizzed on how they would act in certain sce-narios, which are presented as cases studies covering a broad rangeof adult, child, mental health and learning disability examples. Thisencourages the reader to reflect on their own practice, which is of-ten lacking from comparative texts and provides a useful guide,particularly for newer nursing students, on how to structure theirprofessional development portfolios and clinical placementobjectives.

Each chapter provides numerous examples, hints and pointersthat whilst remain generic enough to be applied to any clinical set-ting, are specific enough to give a practical and applicable ap-proach to care. Although initially the book seems orientated tothe adult medico-surgical patient, the topics of child health, men-tal health and learning disability are sufficiently covered to providea thorough guide to students of other nursing branches.

By organising the book in this way, the book presents the essen-tial nursing skills students are desperate to learn, while relatingthese to government initiatives and clinical guidance. Providingthe absolute ‘answers’ student nurses sometimes need and stillencouraging further reading and independent learning.

doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2009.03.013

The edge to the book that I feel raises it above other clinicalskills guides, is the free interactive DVD. Designed to be used atcertain points during the reading of the book, it provides the read-er/viewer with extensive further reading and resources that wouldhave otherwise cluttered the flow of the original text. Additionally,and perhaps most usefully, it provides the student with video clipsof the clinical skills being performed, which show how the bestevidence based methods can easily be applied in practice, provid-ing a critical link between university and the placement area andabolishing the theory practice gap which can occur during a stu-dent nurse’s training. The use of an additional DVD means thatthe book retains an ease of accessibility that a practical guideshould have, whilst still being able to provide an extensive theoret-ical basis. On a simpler note, being able to click on internet links onthe DVD that take the user directly to useful charity organisations,clinical guidelines and journal archives saves much fruitlesssearching on the behalf of the be leagued nursing student.

Despite being primarily written for the first year pre-registra-tion nursing student, I feel it is valuable resource that could, andshould, be referred back to throughout a nurse’s career.

ReferenceDepartment of Health, 2003. Essence of Care – Patient-Focused Benchmarks for

Health Care Practitioners. The Stationery Office, London.

Daniel GillPre-registration Nursing Student,

University of Salford,School of Nursing,

United KingdomE-mail address: D.Gill@student.salford.ac.uk