Welcome to the latest issue of JNSD. There are some exciting articles in this issue that will help you improve your nursing professional development practice. Orientation is always a topic of interest and the article by Park and Jones will not disappoint. These authors provide a review of the literature on the topic and apply their findings to improvement in new graduates' confidence, competency, and retention. This contining education feature offers contact hours as well.
Another literature review on orienation programs for new graduates is the E-content article by Baxter that focuses on the timelines for these programs.
We're hearing a lot recently about violence in health care and nurses are not immune. While many professional development educators may not experience overt violence, nurses are particularly prone to other trauma such as compassion fatigue and grief. Meaders and his co-authors describe a module that helps nurses and others recognize symptoms of these adverse events and develop strategies to decrease their effects.
Finally, the Legal/Ethical column focuses on copyright, one of those thorny issues that plague professional development educators in their educational efforts. Column Editor Sophia Shild provides a clear definition of copyright and who has rights to copyrighted work.
We hope you enjoy the content in this issue and encourage you to check out the topical collections on topics of interst to professional development educators, being compiled by Website Collections Editor Susan Bindon.
As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions!
Belinda E. Puetz, PhD, RN
Editor-in-Chief