FUNDAMENTALS OF NURSING, Fourth Edition is designed for the Fundamentals of Nursing course, usually taught over at least two terms of study. This is the foundational course of the nursing curriculum for beginning level students in all types of professional nursing programs. The Fundamentals of Nursing course is a core, required course with annual enrollments at approximately 100,000 students. Sixty thousand of these students are Associate Degree Nursing s (ADN) students and forty thousand are Bachelor of Science Degree students (BSN). The Department of Labor projects employment growth through 2016 of fourteen percent for LPNs and twenty-three percent for RNs. There are nine hundred twenty-eight ADN and four hundred BSN programs across the country, with reports of steady growth in enrollments due to strong employment demand. This is a growing market, linked solidly to employment opportunities. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) released data showing a five percent enrollment growth from 2006 to 2007 in BSN programs. According to Dr. Peter Buerhaus, author of THE FUTURE OF THE NURSING WORKFORCE IN THE UNITED STATES: DATA, TRENDS AND IMPLICATIONS (Jones and Bartlett 2009), there was a projected shortage in 2008 of 285,000 nurses, indicating continued strong demand for nurses.