Although critical thinking has many definitions, one of the most useful for nursing is from the North American National League for Nursing (2000): 'Critical thinking in nursing practice is a discipline specific, reflective reasoning process that guides a nurse in generating, implementing, and evaluating approaches for dealing with client care and professional concerns' (p. 2). The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council (2006) national competency standards indicate the need for registered nurses and midwives to be able to think critically about client care and to have the skills to contribute to the evidence-based practice framework through research and to apply research to their practice.

Contemporary nursing in Australia and internationally is challenging, complex, dynamic and very rewarding. Many of our clients are older and sicker that they were a decade ago, often with complex health and psychosocial needs. This means that nurses today must be clinically competent, flexible and knowledgeable. They must have a broad and deep knowledge of Physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, epidemiology, therapeutics, culture, ethics and law, as well as an understanding of evidence-based practice. Today's nurses have many roles and functions - clinician, educator, manager, researcher, to name just a few. They must be highly skilled with the ability to problem solve and they must possess sophisticated critical thinking skills. They must be life-long learners and confident in the use of information and communication technology. Nurses must be able to communicate effectively, with their clients, with each other and with other members of the health care team. Above all, they must care for their patients in ways that signify respect, acceptance, empathy, connectedness, cultural sensitivity and genuine concern. Against this background, the first Australian edition of 'Kozier and Erb's fundamentals of nursing' will be of immense benefit to both beginning students and those who are more advanced. This comprehensive textbook, with its unique Australian perspective, introduces the reader to vitally important nursing issues, concepts, practices and theories. The book will prepare students for practice in a range of diverse clinical settings and help them understand what it means to be a competent professional nurse in the twenty-first century.

The number of Chinese immigrants in Australia has increased significantly over the past two decades, and their ageing issues have gradually become the focus of concern. This study aims to fill the literature gap by investigating older Chinese immigrants' experiences and perceptions of growing older in rural Australia in order to gain an understanding of their health-related help-seeking behaviours in this context. This study is situated in a qualitative interpretive paradigm. It uses a transcultural perspective to inform a case study methodology, and it adopts the Theory of Planned Behaviour as an interpretive framework to guide the study. A combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling strategies was used in recruitment, and six Chinese immigrants aged 60–85 years who resided in rural Australia were invited to participate in the study. Individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to gather data, and thematic analysis was applied to analyse the interview data. This study found that the older Chinese immigrants were living in two cultures, and this forced them to reconstruct their cultural beliefs, especially in relation to filial expectations and maintaining harmony in the family. Further, because of a lack of English proficiency, they had greater difficulties dealing with ageing, especially in accessing health care services in rural Australia. These findings have implications for policy and practice related to migrant health care and rural community health practice.

Australian nurses have used the nursing process since the 1980s as a way of systematically thinking about what to do for patients they provide care for. Over time expert clinical nurses and nurse scholars have described the basic process and the terms that name its components in a number of different ways. Yet the nursing process remains a dynamic, cyclic and ongoing process of problem solving in practice. The purpose of the nursing process is to identify a patient's health status and actual or potential health care problems/needs/strengths, to establish plans to meet the identified needs, and to deliver specific nursing interventions to meet those needs. The nurse's evaluation of care will lead to changes in the implementation of care, as the patient's needs change during their stay in hospital with improvement or deterioration in their health status. The nursing process not only focuses on ways to improve the patient's physical needs, but also on social, cultural, emotional and spiritual needs as well. Accordingly, the nursing process is: • cyclic and dynamic • goal directed and patient centred • interpersonal and collaborative • universally applicable • systematic. In this chapter, the patient may be an individual, a family or a group.