This book helps new nursing students, and those applying to nursing programmes, understand what it is to be a nurse in modern healthcare services. It explores the essential issues, processes and theories of nursing practice, and is therefore an ideal first text for nursing programmes, or as pre-course reading. This revised edition includes a new first chapter on being a nursing student, with insights from students themselves, and explains what will be expected in the new all-degree programmes. Interviews with real nurses in each of the fields of practice give students an important view into the real world of nursing.