Accountability and recent developments in nursing: be bold, be holistic: a review of the literature.

Contemporary intensive care nurses are confronted daily with accelerated changes and unprecedented challenges. While advancements in critical care and medical technologies may reflect good intentions for patient care, misguided nursing development may pose a sea of fallibility for intensive care nursing. Conceivably, complex technological developments provoke exponential alienation of intensive care nurses from essential nursing duties. Accountability of the nurse is crucial. A winter of discontent is evident as intensive care nurses assume new roles amidst the new technology. Several themes will be presented in this article.