(nŭrs′ing )


1. The care and nurturing of healthy and ill people, individually or in groups and communities. The American Nurses Association identifies four essential features of contemporary nursing practice: attention to the full range of human experiences and responses to health and illness without restriction to a problem-focused orientation; integration of objective data with knowledge gained from an understanding of the patient or group's subjective experience; application of scientific knowledge to the processes of diagnosis and treatment; and provision of a caring relationship that facilitates health and healing.
SEE: nurseSEE: 2. Breast-feeding.