Nursing

Open Textbooks

  • Nursing Care at the End of Life: What Every Clinician Should Know (2015)
    The purpose of this textbook is to provide an in-depth look at death and dying in this country, including the vital role of the nurse in assisting patients and families along the journey towards the end of life. There is an emphasis throughout the book on the simple, yet understated value of effective interpersonal communication between the patient and clinician. The text provides a basic foundation of understanding death and dying, including a brief historical examination of some main conceptual models associated with how patients cope with impending loss. An overview of illness trajectories and models of care, such as hospice and palliative care are discussed. Lastly, the latest evidence-based approaches for pain and symptom management, ethical concerns, cultural considerations, care at the time of death, and grief/bereavement are examined. The goal of this text is to foster the necessary skills for nurses to provide compassionate care to individuals who are nearing the end of life and their families. Every chapter contains a “What You Should Know” section which highlights and reinforces foundational concepts.
  • Clinical Procedures for Safer Patient Care (2015)
    This open educational resource (OER) was developed to ensure best practice and quality care based on the latest evidence, and to address inconsistencies in how clinical health care skills are taught and practised in the clinical setting. The checklist approach, used in this textbook, aims to provide standardized processes for clinical skills and to help nursing schools and clinical practice partners keep procedural practice current. Each skill/procedure is covered in a chapter that has learning objectives, a brief overview of the relevant theory, checklists of steps for procedures with the rationale behind each step of the process, and a summary of key takeaways. Key terms are set in bold throughout the book and laid out again in a Glossary in the appendix. All 88 checklists are also summarized, and hyperlinked to the original checklist, in the appendix.
  • Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (2015)
    The 13th Edition Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, a.k.a. the “Pink Book,” provides physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, and others with the most comprehensive information on routinely used vaccines and the diseases they prevent.Six appendices contain a wealth of reference materials including: vaccine minimum ages and intervals, current and discontinued vaccines, vaccine contents, foreign vaccine terms, and more.
  • Introduction to Clinical Biochemistry – Interpreting Blood Results (2010)
    This book is a concise introduction to the common blood tests and concepts used in pathology. It is aimed at undergraduate students reading medicine, nursing and midwifery, and subjects allied to health such as Biomedical Science. However, since the book uses “example boxes” to explain complex terms in lay language, it should also be accessible to patients and people with a non-clinical background. The book is written in an informal style and allows for signposted learning of a complex subjects through the use of reading boxes, making it a suitable revision guide. Note: This book does contain some advertising.

Open Textbook Collections

Multimedia

  • YouTube
    • Search YouTube by key terms and try filtering by channel or “Creative Commons” license (these videos are specifically labeled for reuse).
  •  Healthcare and Medicine
    A video compilation of healthcare and medicine topics: Lungs, The heart, and influenza are a few topics covered.
  • Videos through the CSUSM Library
    • Select “Books & More” tab and use these limits: Full Text Available Online and Audio Visual.
    • Library Media Reserves, including Video on Demand option (allows you to stream videos to CSUSM students). Keep in mind that you should leave at least 1 week of lead time for processing these requests.

 

Ebooks in the Library

The CSUSM University Library has an extensive collection of ebooks on a variety of topics. To find what’s available:
  • Go to the University Library homepage
  • Choose “Books and More”
  • Enter keywords and search
  • Use the limiters on the left to narrow by “Full Text Online” to ensure all results can be accessed directly from your computer
  • Limit by “Books” to filter out journals and media

Nursing Ebooks – CSUSM Library

Journal Articles

Consider including journal articles as required or supplemental reading for your courses. Search through our nursing databases for articles. Just be sure to direct students to the article by permalink (or static URL) rather than posting the PDF directly in your Cougar Course. This will ensure two things: 1) that we are complying with copyright and publisher restrictions, and 2) that our journal usage is counted (this allows us to justify maintaining our subscriptions).

This page provides examples illustrating how to find permalinks in the Library’s databases.

Please contact your librarian if you are still unsure of how to find the permalink.

Open Courseware

  • Merlot – Nursing
    Merlot (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is a compilation of freely available resources for use in higher education, hosted by the California State Universities.

     

Case Studies

Nursing students are constantly given new cases that tests their skills and thinking on the job. Below are case studies for students to read and learn from.

  • Preventing Hospital Acquired Infections
    This interactive lesson allows students to explore a virtual hospital to identify potential infection sources, recognize the risks they pose, and design a care plan that recommends appropriate safety precautions to prevent infections.
  • Recognizing Mental Illnesses
    This learning project is useful for any health professional in understanding and becoming more knowledgeable about mental illnesses and their implications in health care settings.

 

Other CSUSM Library Resources

More information about finding and using library resources can be found on the Nursing Research Guide.

 

Suggestions

Have a good idea for a free resource? Tell us about it! Email your subject specialist.