Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Nursing (Hardcover, 2008) 7th EDITION

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

LIFE AND DEATH
"Nursing Fundamentals" can be a matter of life and death. So its scary that every time I pick up the book I find errors.

PEER CONSENSUS
There is a consensus between all my classmates that information from this book cannot be trusted. The "NCLEX-Style Review Question Answer Key" (page 1440) is so inaccurate that our instructors had to correct it and give us the corrected version as a handout.

QUICK EXAMPLES

* Page 49 Table 4-1
Benner and Wrubel are "Brenner and Wrubel" here.

* Page 743 Table 35-10
In the first footnote in this box. "* Regular insulin is the only insulin for intravenous use...action is between 30 and 30 minutes." Really, "between 30 and 30"; this makes me question the other information I spend all day studying.

I am using this book for my nursing program as a required text. During and after reading each chapter, I find myself not being able to completely understand many of the distinctions between various ideas or functions, and so I am left without a comfortable grasp of some (not all) of the information. Subsequent re-readings of the material often results in minor improvement as expected, but the way the book is written makes it difficult to glean some (not all) of the important concepts, and there are multiple statements and ideas that re-readings ad nauseum cannot clarify adequately.

The text has a massive quantity of filler (more than any other textbook I have come across thus far), and it is very challenging to sift through it and find what's valuable (the who, what, when, where, why, how, what is it for and what does it do). The large amount of filler - including but not limited to extremely redundant or "duh" statements such as, "Critical thinking is involved with evidence-based practice," and, "Evidenced-based practice requires critical thinking" - also makes each chapter take much longer to read through. Even when you wade through the massive slough of filler and find the valuable information, it is often incomplete, improperly explained, or too ambiguous to completely grasp without divine intervention.

Some sentences have far too much data or too many listed items to comfortably read. There are many sentences that are hard to read and derive anything from simply because they are poorly written. The book has many complex or vague ideas and statements (sometimes using jargon, other times using a poor choice of words or unclear idea expression) and does not adequately clarify or explain what is meant, leaving the reader with an inadequate or incorrect understanding of whatever the book is attempting to convey.

I am disappointed that the answers section for the nclex questions do not have any rationale included, nor do the critical thinking questions have any answers available for review. The lack of thorough feedback does not facilitate learning.

Overall, I feel that the material does not give the reader an adequate or clear understanding of many concepts necessary to answer critical thinking questions like those used by my instructors. The main problem is that the important information is often written poorly, and the secondary problem is the excess filler doubles or triples the time it takes to read, without giving any more useful information than would be present without the filler.

I have several other books I am currently reading for nursing coursework, including Ackley's nursing diagnosis, Jarvis' health assessment, and Kee's phamacology, and they are all much more succinct and clear. They are easier and more enjoyable (or tolerable, whichever you prefer) to read. It is far easier to gather information from them, and it takes less time to get it. These other books are being used for the nursing coursework as well, so I don't believe I can attribute the difficulty of reading Fundamentals of Nursing to a "higher level of reading" like my lecture instructor says. It's not more advanced, it's just harder and less productive. If any of the authors of those other books took a stab at a nursing fundamentals book, it would be half the size, contain much more useful information, and be infinitely easier and more productive to read.

The companion CD is of limited value and only serves benefit for the mentioned info such as electrolyte information. It does not provide a computer-based version of the book, and most of the learning aids for specific chapter information are very truncated and almost useless. The online resource, however, is generally useful, but does not adequately make up for the book's flaws.

I don't care about typos as long as I can interpret the idea of the statement clearly. The book has plenty of typos (more than usual), but that is insignificant compared to how poorly the chapters are written.

Is the book the worst book in the world? No. Is it impossible to read? No. Is it bad for a textbook? I think so. Is it worse than any other textbook I have read in the past 2.5 years of college? Yes. Do I have a choice in what material I am assigned for the program? If I did, I wouldn't choose this book.

there's so many things wrong with this new edition. (answers are different if you compare this ed to the 6th, some text missing, and no rationale in the back to explain the answers!) the 6th ed is better with rationales in the back along with answers. even my professor contacted the publisher and informed them of the problems with this edition and was told that they're going to provide us with a CD of the textbook. what a waste of my money on this textbook if it's not even usable!!! i have the 6th edition and it's much better!

Wow, what an awful book. I agree with most of what has been written about this book. I'm a 1st semester nursing student with a background in English and I'm more than a little disgusted by Elsevier's resources so far. I thought the HESI review book was bad, and this book is equally bad. Not only does it have grammar and spelling errors, but there are more substantive errors, too, that really take their toll on your confidence (and patience) while you're reading. There is a ton of filler information so it is nearly impossible to sift and sort out what might be important for each chapter. We're also using an Assessment book by the author Jarvis, and it is way, way ahead of this book in terms of quality control.

And there are still errors in the answer key and the review questions are terribly written.

The latest error I found tonight has me shaking my head:
Page 1046, chapter 42 on Sleep:
Bedtime Snacks
"A dairy product snack such as warm milk or COCOA that contains L-tryptophan is often helpful in promoting sleep..."

Next paragraph: "Encourage clients not to drink or ingest caffeine before bed time. Coffee, tea, cola, and CHOCOLATE act as stimulants, causing a person to stay awake or awaken throughout the night."

Faculty, please please please think twice about adopting this book as part of your curriculum. Don't listen to the publisher's sales people. The online resources that accompany this book are EVEN WORSE, and are filled with mistakes. You'll spend so much time correcting mistakes from this series that you won't have time to teach Fundamentals.

Potter and Perry's 7th edition is chock-full of errors in the following areas (and I have only been reading it for a month):
1) minor typos throughout the book
2) incorrect answers to the NCLEX-style questions at the ends of the chapters and on the included CD ROM.
3) errors mentioned by other critics, e.g., regarding insulin action time, are still present in this printing that is copyrighted 2009. (I waited to buy this new printing of the 7th edition as I had hoped the errors other critics had noted would be corrected.

Additionally, the writing is verbose, disorganized, and lacking in important details. In the month I have been reading this book, I have found myself turning to other sources for more concise information, e.g., Lehne for drug metabolism, Saunder's NCLEX Review for acid-base and electrolyte coverage (I also like Lewis better for that, too), etc.

I just posted a negative review for Lewis' Medical Surgical Nursing, in which I just found a content error. What is the deal with these nursing textbooks having so many errors? Hmm...one connection is Mosby Elsevier - the publishers...

Thank you so much for including the corrected answers to the NCLEX-style review questions. I found it very helpful while studying. You are the best :)

This is a dreadful textbook for nursing students! I don't understand why schools would elect to use this textbook.
The chapters are not concise, too long and not easy to understand. After getting through a chapter, I don't know if I learn much from it since I get confused, tired, and bored.
The arrangement/layout is not easy to follow.
Some of the explanations are not clear and they just keep going on and on.
Chapter 15 pg. 223-225 is especially bad because if you have the study guide as well, try answer the matching secsion #13-23 on pg. 50.
?????? what will students gain out of it?????????

I can't find a word to describe my frustration!!!!

I used this book 2 years ago in my first nursing class. Information inside isn't trustworthy. We noticed that there are different versions of the textbook even though they are the same edition. The 2 versions of the same edition had conflicting information from one another. Not trustworthy at all.

I read this book if I can't sleep at night. The guidelines and tutorial sections are out of date and unrealistic. This book was a struggle to read for school. The information is presented in such a bland context it was hard to retain anything, let alone pay attention to the pages. Ugh.

I just finished my first semester of nursing school and I was required to purchase this book. There were so many typos that even a layman can find that it scared me to take any information at face value. If I was Potter or Perry I would hate to have my name attached to such a terrible text. There were a large group of us that purchased another Fundementals text book (by Harkreader) and got the information from that book instead and our test avereage went up. Please do yourself a favor and beg your instructor to choose a book by someone who can at least spell and edit.