John Howard

This book offers a practical approach to guide nurses in the art and science of renal care. It is holistic as well as technical therapeutic and compassionate in its approach. Acute and chronic renal failure renal osteodystrophy and other selected diseases are comprehensively discussed. The nurse's role with regard to specific treatments such as peritoneal dialysis haemodialysis plasma exchange and haemoperfusion as well as organ transplantation procedures are discussed in detail and a section relating specifically to paediatric care is included. The final section of the book is devoted to the use of complementary therapies and alternative medicine in renal disease. 'The book lays the foundation on which nurses can build their evidence-based practice and knowledge skills and enhance patient care. The aim of this book is to provide a practical holistic guide for nurses to the skills and knowledge required by them to care for their patients. It covers the renal patients experiences both physically and psychologically incorporating the dialysis therapies of acute and chronic failure on to renal transplantation. Nursing renal patients within an acute hospital setting a chronic dialysis unit or a satellite unit places many challenges on the nurse caring for them today. I therefore hope that this book will provide the knowledge needed by those working in the field of renal nursing and that it will be used as a resource in renal units throughout the UK' Avril Redmond Chair of RCN Nephrology Nurses Forum in the Foreword

One doesn't usually associate thriving queer culture with rural America, but John Howard's history of queer life in the South seeks to debunk the myth that same-sex desires can't find expression outside the big city. In fact, this book shows that the nominally conservative institutions of small-town life - home, church, school and workplace - were the very sites where queer sexuality flourished. As Howard recounts the life stories of the ordinary and the famous, often in their own words, he also locates the material traces of queer sexuality in the landscape: from the farmhouse to the church social, from sports facilities to roadside rest areas. Spanning four decades, this book complicates traditional notions of a post-World War II conformist wave in America. Howard argues that the 1950s, for example, were a period of vibrant queer networking in Mississippi, while during the so-called "free love" 1960s homosexuals faced aggressive oppression. When queer sex was linked to racial agitation and when key civil rights leaders were implicated in homosexual acts, authorities cracked down and literally ran the accused out of town. In addition to firsthand accounts, the text finds representations of homosexuality in regional pulp fiction and artwork, as well as in the number one pop song about a suicidal youth who jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge. And Howard offers assessments of outrageous public scandals: a conservative US congressman caught in the act in Washington and a white candidate for governor accused of patronizing black transgender sex workers. This history of the queer South aims to reorient the presuppositions about gay identity and about the dynamics of country life.