Volume 4, Number 3

Maxine Whitton BAHons PGCE ALA Patient Advocate, Former Chairman of the Vitiligo Society

My involvement began after I attended a presentation Professor Hywel Williams made to the dermatology nurses at their 1998 annual meeting. Before this, I had only a vague notion of the work of the Cochrane Collaboration but thought that the establishment of a Cochrane Skin Group in November 1997 was definitely a good idea.

Susan Robertson RGN ENB N25 998 931 934 Dermatology Specialist Nurse, Essex Rivers Healthcare

Increased sweating has a drastic impact on lives. Some dermatology departments are now offering treatment; using an Iomax 4, which has been seen to reduce palm and sole sweating. The machine discharges an electric current through water and, for reasons that are unclear, this reduces, and can lead to a complete cessation of, sweating. Susan Robertson RGN ENB N25 998 931 934 Dermatology Specialist Nurse, Essex Rivers Healthcare, explains how to operate the Iomax 4 iontophoresis machine.

Jill Peters RGN BSc (Hons) Health Studies Dip Nurse Practitioner ENB 393 934 998 870 A33 CMS Dermatology Nurse Practitioner/Community Liaison Sister, Public Health Service, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London

The role of the dermatology nurse practitioner (DNP) has been constantly developing over the past years. I have been the DNP at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital since September 1996.

Gillian Godsell RGN Skin Cancer Nurse Specialist, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham

The boundaries between the clinical work of doctors and that of nurses are moving closer together as a result of a complex mixture of pressures coming from government initiatives, new technologies and treatments, changing patterns of healthcare delivery and the processes by which services are purchased. These changes have often resulted in unmet patient needs, to which nurses are increasingly responding with the desire to provide high-quality patient care.