Background: Faculty are encouraged to use a variety of teaching/learning strategies to engage nursing students. While simulation and games are now common, there were no reports in the nursing literature using an "escape room" concept. Escape rooms use an entertainment approach as teams engage in critical thinking to solve puzzles and find clues to escape a room. In the classroom setting, this concept is modified to solve a mystery by finding various objects through a series of puzzles to locate clues. Some of these games involve finding numerical clues to open locks on a box, such as a toolbox. The purpose of this study was to describe the use of a toolbox gaming strategy based on an escape room concept to help students learn about cardiovascular medications in a pharmacology course. Methods: This pilot study employed a descriptive qualitative method to investigate an approach to pharmacology education. The sample consisted of first semester nursing students. Results: Student responses to criteria-based questions resulted in three themes: engaging, teamwork, and frustration, related to using a toolbox scenario strategy as a pathway to learning. Conclusions: This descriptive study yielded mixed results from the students who were frustrated by time constraints but engaged in the learning experience. Lessons are offered for future improvements.

Purpose: To determine the effects of a community-based program of exercise on quality of life (QOL) of persons with cancer over time.

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Nurses commonly encounter pain and suffering, and alleviation of pain and suffering is a focus of the nurse's job. Spirituality and religion may assist patients who are suffering, and understanding the relationship between spiritual influences and suffering can help nurses better care for patients. Finding meaning in suffering has been described as a transcendent experience. Nurses can help patients find meaning through interventions such as listening to and witnessing suffering, connecting suffering and spirituality, creating a healing environment, and inviting reflections on suffering. Patients are "wounded story tellers" who can use their stories to make sense of their illness. Little research however has looked at patients' stories and caregivers' response in relation to patients' suffering. This article describes how patients find meaning in suffering and how nursing interventions can assist suffering patients. The process of caring for a suffering person is painful for the nurse and requires exceptional effort on the nurse's part, but the very act that drains the nurse can also create the fuel for compassionate care.