Despite Challenges: Nursing Student Persistence.

BACKGROUND: Seeking to improve nursing student retention in their small university, faculty conducted a literature review on attrition in nursing education and discovered it to be a significant global problem with nearly one third of qualified students discontinuing. Improved nursing student persistence could stem the growing worldwide nursing shortage. The existing research on retention indicates multi-faceted challenges and impacts but offers scant solutions or insight into student perspectives. METHOD: The nursing faculty piloted a bridge course for the freshman cohort to develop intrinsic strengths for student persistence and begin soliciting student feedback using a mixed-methods phenomenological approach. RESULTS: Faculty describe the bridge course framework and activities and present initial student responses. CONCLUSION: The pilot bridge course serves as one step toward identifying challenges and interventions from students' perspectives to support persistence as a means of meeting nursing shortage demands. [J Nurs Educ. 2019;58(7):427-430.].

Medical privacy and the public's right to vote: what presidential candidates should disclose.

We argue that while presidential candidates have the right to medical privacy, the public nature and importance of the presidency generates a moral requirement that candidates waive those rights in certain circumstances. Specifically, candidates are required to disclose information about medical conditions that are likely to seriously undermine their ability to fulfill what we call the "core functions" of the office of the presidency. This requirement exists because (1) people have the right to be governed only with their consent, (2) people's consent is meaningful only when they have access to information necessary for making informed voting decisions, (3) such information is necessary for making informed voting decisions, and (4) there are no countervailing reasons sufficiently strong to override this right. We also investigate alternative mechanisms for legally encouraging or requiring disclosure. Protecting the public's right to this information is of particular importance because of the documented history of deception and secrecy regarding the health of presidents and presidential candidates.

Prescribing oral contraceptives for women older than 35 years of age.

This paper addresses the use of combined oral contraceptives in women older than 35 years of age, including the potential risks and benefits, pretreatment assessment, common side effects and their management, appropriate follow-up, and diagnosis of menopause. The case-based discussion also focuses on issues that pertain to women who smoke, have hypertension, or have dyslipidemia.