What a year it has been for our healthcare system. The Schiavo case, two major hurricanes, and a flurry of legislative activity over medical malpractice reform are enough to make your head spin. I hope that this journal has helped you keep up with all of the changes going on in health law that impact your practice as a nurse administrator or executive.
This issue contains a superb article regarding parental refusal of care for minor children, for which you can also obtain continuing education credit. A nice complement to this article is our other feature article regarding developments in the use of ethics committees. Both of these articles grew out of the authors' own experiences in the workplace. Given the turmoil of the last year, I would bet that some of you have had experiences that would make a great article for this journal. While I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, I would encourage you to think back on this year and how you might turn some of the last year's experiences into an article for submission to this journal. I always say when I give lectures to nurses that the audience learns from the questions other audience members ask, as well as from my lecture content. What knowledge do you have that you can share with your colleagues? What do you wish you could ask other nurse executives to share with you?
I hope you will give this some thought, and I hope 2006 is a bit more quiet for all of us.