Thanks. Jacqueline. I will have a look at this.

You might also like to look at the Association for Peri-operative Practice (AfPP) and their Journal of Perioperative Practice (formally British Journal of Perioperative Nursing, BJPN). The AfPP used to be the NATN, (National Association of Theatre Nurses) until they changed their name to include Operating Department Practitioners (ODP's) in the early 2000's I think it was.

Other than that, have you looked at Watson's Medical Surgical?

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your comments!

There is the Lewis Medical Surgical Nursing textbook which differentiates between the two quite well

Thanks, Geraldine. I will take a look at that book.

CINAHL search on Differentiated AND Surgical Nursing AND Medical Nursing gave me 5 responses. This article below might give you something of what you are looking for, Randi?

Mallidou AA ; Cummings GG ; Estabrooks CA ; Giovannetti PB

Nurse specialty subcultures and patient outcomes in acute care hospitals: a multiple-group structural equation modeling. International Journal of Nursing Studies (INT J NURS STUD), 2011 Jan; 48(1): 81-93

Thanks a lot, Per. The article is really interesting and very relevant for the student who asked me for help on this question.

I’m happy that my contribution could be of help for you and your student. It might be below your students level, still one could find useful references among some of the thesis written by nursing students concerning the issues your student what to do research over.

I did today also find this doctoral thesis written in swedish by Karin Hallin "Att vara sjuksköterska." I do hope you can find it by the link. If not Im happy to send it to you as pdf.

http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:207865

Thanks again, Per. The link works fine. I do read Swedish, but I am afraid my student doesn't. But anyway, I will look through it.

dear i am a med-surg nursing (msc) and graduated from iran, between medical nursing and surgical nursing isnt any gap because med.Nur is base for learning surgical.

hi dear i am PhD in Medical Surgical Nursing from India. medical nursing deal with the medical condition which includes from prevention to cure phase in medical aspect where surgical nurses are deal with the surgical management and nursing care based on surgical prospective.

Ms. Jepsen , this is a critical question for the nursing profession and the methods in which nursing is taught now and in the future. I believe that we continue to see old processes with new medical procedures and technology. In the 1970's there were medical units and surgical units which separated patients such as htn, chf, crf, dka from post op cases ie. cholecystectomy, appendectomy, colorectal surgery etc.

AS we moved into the late 1980's managed care pulled the two populations together. At that time I was a clinical nurse specialist over  4 critical care units that were specialized into cardiac surgery, cardiac care, medical icu and post icu. Staffing needs and knowledge deficits required that the staff be trained in medical nursing knowledge so that the staff could be used through out the units. The concept of med-surg has been a practical method to providing skilled knowledgeable staff  to care for all populations in the hospital. In larger academic settings they continue to have specialty units. I still professionally believe that all nurses should have basic medical surgical knowledge and experience in which to enter the work force.

The reality is that those patients that use to be on med-surg units are now cared for in the home or sub-acute units. Telemetry monitoring now has extended remotely into med-surg units to move the technology to the patient instead of moving the patient to the technology. Moving patients through a facility increases risks for hemodynamic instability, O2 desaturation, and bacterial foot prints. Mosbys Med-Surg manual was for many years the gold standard for nursing education. Sticking to the basic medical conditions and surgical conditions is always a good foundation for educating our future nursing work force.

Great thought question!