Nurses are confronted with complex patient health issues every day. As nurses, we have to be advocates for our patients and implement our critical thinking skills into action. Although health care delivery focuses on quality of patient care, recent developments on both the national and regional levels are forcing clinical quality to the forefront as a critical issue (Burke & Matthews, 2003). As nurses, we are at the forefront in detecting, correcting, and reducing adverse outcomes in patient care. With the rapid changes that are occurring in health care, the utilization of unfolding case studies will help our future nurses to be able to answer the call of providing quality care. Unfolding case studies can be used as a guide to assess, implement, plan, edu cate, and evaluate the care of patients in improving the quality of patient care. The use of unfolding case studies will help student nurses “develop skills they need to analyze, organize, and prioritize in novel situations” (Batscha & Moloney, 2005,

1. 387). Unfolding case studies mimic real-life situations in nursing and are situ

ational mental models that will assist students to problem solve, actively engage, and use critical thinking techniques (Azzarello & Wood, 2006). As a student works through the unfolding case studies, the vision of prac ticing as a professional nurse who is actively problem solving takes shape. The unfolding case study method assists in the development of skills that are impor tant for NCLEX-RN® success in assessment, planning, intervention, and evaluation of patient care. The patient care content areas that are needed for NCLEX-RN success—safe and effective care, health promotion, and physiological and psy chological integrity—are interwoven in an enjoyable format without the drudgery of answering multiple-choice question after question, memorizing fl ashcards and medical terminology defi nitions, or learning test-taking tricks. eResource links to additional information are positioned throughout the book. In the e-book, clicking on the link will take the student directly to that website to study additional con tent, which could be as interactive as watching a procedural video on YouTube. A list of these web links and eResources is available from www.springerpub .com/gittings-ancillaries. The NCLEX-RN is a content-driven test and these unfolding case studies de liver medical-surgical nursing content intermingled with active learning strategies. A variety of NCLEX-style question formats are used in this book to help students assess their own learning. They include multiple-choice questions, fi ll-ins, hot spots, matching, true and false, prioritizing, and calculations. Questions are con sistent with current NCLEX-RN testing methods.