Improve your critical thinking skills with 148 realistic case studies from all four clinical practice areas: medical-surgical, pediatrics, maternity, and psychiatric nursing. Each case in Critical Thinking Cases in Nursing, 4th Edition covers a common problem, drawn from actual clinical experiences and written by nurses who are clinical experts. All cases have been thoroughly updated and revised to include current clinical practices, with integrated content on pharmacology, nutrition, and diagnostic/lab tests to encourage you to think critically about all aspects of care. This fourth edition also features highlighted prioritization content to help you prepare for success on the NCLEX® examination and provide quality patient care. Uses a comprehensive case study approach drawn from actual clinical experiences, helping you learn to think critically, prioritize, and deliver proactive nursing care. Each case study reinforces a critical thinking approach to patient care by helping you identify changes, anticipate possible complications, and initiate therapeutic interventions. Questions for each case study are rated according to their level of complexity - knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. Cases increase in complexity throughout each chapter so that you can steadily increase your knowledge. Includes separate chapters on important topics such as alternative therapies, multiple system disorders, and emergency situations. Logical, body system organization of medical-surgical cases makes it easier to use with numerous medical-surgical nursing textbooks and courses. Presents more clinical case studies than any other resource - 148 in all - covering all four clinical nursing settings. Groups cases so you can find relevant information easily: Medical-Surgical; Pediatric, Maternity, and Psychiatric; and Other/Advanced Cases. Includes new cases on pediatric and maternity patients. Provides a new emphasis on prioritization in the clinical setting, highlighted with an easy-to-spot icon, to reinforce critical thinking in practice.