This new book addresses the questions: "What is the legal status of the registered nurse, what is the nurse's role and what are the nurse's professional, political and clinical responsibilities and duties?" The text is divided into five parts, each of which looks at an aspect of the complexity of the conflicting images of the nurse in the law. - Includes the history of nursing's professional development - All the images are interwoven to create the social and legal realities of the nurses' lives in practice