Nursing instructors have relied on MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING: TOTAL PATIENT CARE for over 35 years. It's one of the most comprehensive medical-surgical nursing books available for LPN students. This expansive new edition includes more critical thinking exercises, increased coverage of medical-surgical disorders, health assessment, and information on supervisory roles and delegation of responsibilities to unlicensed assistive personnel. New CDC guidelines and 1998 NANDA diagnoses are incorporated throughout. * Invaluable Nursing Process Boxes take the student through the process for each major disorder with a concise, visual overview of the application of the process. They prepare the LPN to assist the RN in diagnosis and evaluation of care. * Included in each clinical chapter, nursing care plans begin with a case study, followed by history and relevant assessment data. The care plan demonstrates how the assessment data are translated into nursing diagnoses, as well as how to plan, implement and evaluate expected outcomes of care for the patient in the case study. * Key responsibilities of today's LPN - Patient Teaching and Older Adult Considerations - are emphasized in special boxes as well as in the narrative to highlight these essential elements of care. * Concise, clear Pharmacology Tables provide information regarding routes of administration, normal dosage, and nursing considerations for commonly used drugs. * Unique Nurse Alerts offer helpful, practical hints designed to assist students in making the transition from the classroom to the clinical setting. * Specific to this text, Ethical Dilemma Boxes help students examine their own values and make good decisions in difficult situations. The Instructor's Manual includes guidelines for the decision making process for each of these boxes. * Critical Thinking Questions in each chapter help students develop clinical decision making skills. Answers are included in the Instructor's Manual.