Since Florence Nightingale, nurses have agreed that care should be individualized for each patient. Emergency care is no different and texts on this subject instruct the nurse to involve the client in his own care and to recognize that being an emergency victim is physically and psychologically difficult for the client. But just what is client-centered emergency care and are clients getting it?

A client is brought to the emergency room, unconscious, with severe head trauma resulting from a motorcycle accident. In this instance client-centered care consists of the nurse reacting swiftly and probably unemotionally. It is not in the client's best interest at this time for the nurse to try to ascertain that person's values and life views. Here client-centered care is compatible with the values and views of both the nurse and the institution.