Reduce–Recycle–Reuse: Guidelines for Promoting Perioperative Waste Management

The perioperative environment generates large amounts of waste, which negatively affects local and global ecosystems. To manage this waste health care facility leaders must focus on identifying correctable issues, work with relevant stakeholders to promote solutions, and adopt systematic procedural changes. Nurses and managers can moderate negative environmental effects by promoting reduction, recycling, and reuse of materials in the perioperative setting.

Environment, ecosystems, and ecological behavior: a dialogue toward developing nursing ecological theory

Current epistemological foundations of nursing theory incorporate minimal ecology theory. The purpose of this article is to present a nursing ecological theory with a goal to broaden current nursing perspectives by incorporating expanded concepts of global ecosystems, communities, and interrelationships derived from ecological sciences. A theory derivation process is utilized, and a nursing ecological model is proposed. Nurses face a challenge to translate global environment concern and ecological beliefs into professional activities. Elucidating a nursing ecological theory may guide our profession toward new directions in holistic care and will be good for the care of our patients, profession, and the Earth.

Drug approval highlights for 2003

In the past 12 months, the FDA has approved important new pharmaceutical drugs and devices of particular interest to primary health care providers. The drugs include: Oxytrol (for urinary incontinence), Valtrex (for reducing the risk of heterosexual transmission of genital herpes), Femring (for vaginal delivery of hormone therapy), Uroxatral (for benign prostatic hypertrophy), Levitra (for erectile dysfunction), Flumist (for preventing influenza), Xolair (for asthma), Raptiva (for psoriasis), Cubicin (for skin infections), Crestor (for hypercholesterolemia), and Coreg (for severe heart failure).