MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING presents a thorough overview of the concepts that provide the framework for medical-surgical nursing, including the nursing process, nursing assessment, adult development, collaborative care, patient teaching, and critical thinking. A strong emphasis on pathophysiology and a body-systems approach encourages understanding of the disease process and accurate assessment findings. The easy-to-follow, full color design and comprehensive and logical format promote student learning of essential nursing concepts. * Each body system section contains a separate assessment chapter that includes a review of anatomy and physiology, an explanation of relevant health history and physical assessment, and a discussion of common diagnostic studies to give students a basis for understanding the discussions of disorders. * Identifies and discusses all levels of nursing management, including Health Promotion, Acute Intervention, and Ambulatory and Home Care to prepare the nurse to effectively intervene at various stages of illness. * Extensive gerontologic content identifies age-related changes for each body system to alert the nurse to differences often encountered in older patients, highlighted in Gerontologic Considerations and Effects of Aging headings and in Gerontologic Differences in Assessment and Effects of Aging tables. * Critical Thinking Exercises at the end of each nursing management chapter include Case Studies with Critical Thinking Questions, as well as Nursing Research Issues questions to highlight current topics for research. * Chapter 9: "Nursing Management: Pain" has been updated for increased readability and student comprehension of this complex yet important subject. * Provides over 80 nursing care plans, thoroughly updated, to incorporate current NANDA diagnoses, defining characteristics of the problem, specific nursing interventions, and evaluation criteria.