title: The future of (psychiatric) nursing.
abstract: The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) recent report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, describes a number of problems in nursing practice, education, and leadership-as well as recommendations to address them. However, these problems are not really new; they were discussed in earlier publications and addressed in the 1970s by the National Joint Practice Commission (NJPC). In this article, I review these early publications and the work of the NJPC as background for the IOM report. I also outline each recommendation in the report, raising questions about the "how to" and sustainability of these suggestions. To move psychiatric-mental health nursing forward, the best first step would be to find out more about the specialty and the nurses who practice it, so the IOM recommendations can begin to be achieved.
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, Division of Continuing Studies, Institute of Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers -- The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. smoyak@docs.rutgers.edu
authors.forename: Shirley A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Smoyak
mesh_terms: D006285:Health Planning; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce