title: The nursing explosion-technology, knowledge, and practice: its implications for leadership in aerospace nursing.
abstract: Authorities agree that we are experiencing a tremendous upheavel in numerous fields of endeaveor, health care in particular, resulting from the rapid growth of human information and capabilities since the 1950s. This upgrowth has touched nursing. This nursing explosion, in terms of technological advancement, increased knowledge, and expanded practice, demands the leadership of aerospace nursing to reexamine it posture and direction. A fresh look at its past and present successes and failures is essential to meet the challenges of the future. For "not to decide is to decide". There are two basic assumptions which underlie this challenge for leadership caused by the nursing explosion. First, as a self-directing profession, nursing can define its philosophical base, determine its goals, and identify the means for attaining those goals. Second, as the largest of the health professions, nursing has the right and responsibility to respond to the quantity and quality of global health care delivery systems. The analysis of this challenge for leadership shall be attempted in the light of three perspectives--organizationally, socio-politically, and professionally. The nursing explosion has dramatized the realization that nursing has the knowledge, power, resources in numbers, and dedication to service to move health care systems in the direction necessary. As Prof. Bell of Harvard has noted, the current revolution of rising entitlement to health care will have a marked influence on the nursing effort and vice versa. The call to leadership "a loud call and a clear call and it cannot be denied."
mesh_terms: D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D006801:Humans; D009729:Nursing / Q000639:trends