Academic Nursing Practice: Helping to Shape the Future of Health Care, Lois K. Evans and Norma M. Lang, editors. New York, Springer Publishing Co, 2004. 278 pages, hardcover, $52.95.

This compendium of 40 contributors from a wide range of settings explores and discusses a much needed change in nursing education. Practitioner teachers have been in all the other fields for a long time. Nurse faculty members have remained aloof and unwilling to be behavioral models of practice similar to the clinical professions. The question must be asked, "What nurse faculty member would want to have surgery performed on her/him by a surgeon taught by a nonpracticing physician." This text comments deeply on this range of activity and its potential for better outcomes for nursing students and patients. The text is presented in 2 major sections: (1) the mission of academic nursing practices: melding research, education, and clinical care (5 chapters) and (2) resources and strategies for implementing academic practice (8 chapters).

Students have had to use the staff nurses as their models of care, no matter whether they had academic degrees or not. A huge change was brought about with physicians after a study conducted in 1910 showed their weaknesses. They ranked behind most other professions. After several years of turmoil and disagreement, they voted to close most of the schools of medicine and keep only those heavily imbedded in major universities with practicing faculties: They soared to the top of the professions in 10 years and the healthcare of patients was greatly improved. Although the text does not state that similar action should be taken for the nursing profession, it certainly suggests this in a covert manner. The text should be read intensely by faculty members.