1 volume This book presents an engaging approach to the fundamentals of nursing while building on its renowned reputation as the foremost text for nursing students across Australia and New Zealand. This edition presents a critical thinking approach, to encourage the critical skills and understandings students require to maintain a high level of active engagement in the development of their practice within the health care systems they will work throughout their careers. Meaningful clinical examples combined with critical thinking questions, promote reflection and support deeper learning. These examples underscore how putting quality nursing knowledge and skills into practice can mean the difference between patient recovery and independence versus life threatening complications and patient decline Nursing today -- The healthcare delivery system -- Nursing models for practice -- Critical inquiry and practice development -- Critical thinking and nursing judgement -- Nursing assessment and diagnosis -- Planning, implementing and evaluating nursing care -- Managing client care -- Ethics and professional practice -- Legal implications in nursing practice in Australia -- Legal implications in nursing practice in New Zealand -- Communication -- Client education -- Documentation -- Developing a culture of safety and quality -- Health and wellness -- Sociocultural considerations and nursing practice -- Caring for families -- Developmental theories -- Conception to adolescence -- Young and middle adulthood -- Older adulthood