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Maternal smoking during pregnancy and maternal smoking postnatally are important public health concerns worldwide. Smoking adversely affects the woman's general health and is causally related to pregnancy complications and serious health outcomes for the child, such as stillbirth, preterm delivery, low birth weight, and sudden infant death. The purpose of this research was to examine maternal smoking through a quantitative descriptive survey of 164 women, 120 who were pregnant and 44 who were postnatal. Women experienced barriers to quitting smoking, including dealing with stress, being exposed to smokers, not being ready to quit, not knowing how to quit, not looking for or not being able to find information about smoking or quitting smoking, and lacking adequate social and healthcare provider support. On the other hand, women revealed characteristics that suggest they might have had improved potential for quitting smoking, including having negative feelings about smoking, having cut down on smoking, smoking at a low level, having made quit attempts, thinking it would not be hard to quit smoking, being in the preparation stage of behavioral change, and thinking their healthcare providers (HCPs) would help them if they decided to quit. Taken together, those findings suggest that HCPs could offer important assistance to help women achieve smoking cessation. However, more research needs to be conducted to clarify the role and effectiveness of various HCPs in smoking cessation interventions and to identify measures to strengthen their provision of such interventions.

Parents (n = 135) were surveyed in relation to administering antipyretic/analgesic medications to their children (2 months-6 years) at home. Parents usually chose acetaminophen, calculated dosages based on weight but did not always know the child's weight, administered medications with a dropper, and reported having a sick child was moderately stressful. Many children were medicated for pain and/or fever during the week prior to immunization and many weighed more than the age/weight recommended dosages on the label. Community health nurses can facilitate safe administration of medications by integrating knowledge of parents' pain and fever management practices into discussions and anticipatory planning during clinic visits.

Students enrolled in accelerated baccalaureate nursing programs have often proven themselves to be independent, ambitious and self-motivated. Nurse educators are being challenged to adapt their accelerated program curricula, teaching approaches and delivery modes to accommodate the goals, abilities and resources of these adult learners. At the same time, the rapid changes occurring in health care delivery, locally and worldwide, challenge new practitioners to quickly achieve an increasing list of cognitive and psychomotor competencies for effective nursing practice. Since January 2011, faculty members of Memorial University School of Nursing have been engaged in a comprehensive initiative to create a new accelerated program with a redesigned curriculum. Briefly presented key milestones accomplished to date, including articulating the new accelerated program mission statement; determining applicant requirements; formulating a new educational philosophy; seeking governance approval; establishing program outcomes; and, framing the curriculum structure.

There have been tremendous research advances in the past 15 years in knowledge about children's pain, and strategies for recognizing and managing that pain. However, the clinical care of children in pain remains a challenge. Children's pain continues to be frequently unrecognized , dismissed or ineffectively managed. A loud call for change is being voiced by physicians, nurses, children and their families. A review of the literature was conducted to document this issue. Starting with a Medline search of the key word 'child* + pain' and continuing with a snowball technique, articles and resources addressing children's pain were collected. Resources presented or published after 1990 were particularly sought because they theoretically reflect both current knowledge about children's pain and the implementation of this knowledge in practice. Unfortunately, although information on pain is available to help children, in many instances, it is not being used. The purpose of the present paper is twofold -- to present an overview of current knowledge of children's pain, and factors that hinder its effective assessment and management; and to present a mandate for change. Children's postoperative pain is highlighted in this paper as an example of the gap between pain knowledge and clinical practice. Although treatment strategies differ across different types of pain, children's conditions and ages, the principles and mandate for change discussed in this paper are directly relevant to all categories of children's pain.

Radiation-induced fibrosis (RIF) is an uncommon complication of radiation therapy. RIF most often occurs in the extremities; it is rare in the head and neck. Only a few medical treatments for RIF are available, and they have been mediocre at best. We describe a case of RIF of the face that was treated successfully with a nonmedical modality: manual compression therapy.