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109th out of 724 books
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749 voters
Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between
"Doctors heal, or try to, but as nurses we step into the breach, figure out what needs to be done for any given patient today, on this shift, and then, with love and exasperation, do it as best as we can."—from Critical Care"At my job, people die," writes Theresa Brown, capturing both the burden and the singular importance of her profession. Brown, a former English profess...more
Hardcover, 189 pages
Published
June 1st 2010
by HarperOne
(first published 2010)
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My favorite passage:
Florence Nightingale called nursing "one of the Fine Arts" and described it in terms of artistic production: "Nursing is an art: ad, if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion, as hard as a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work." These two forms of visual art are an interesting choice. She could have compared nursing to farming, religious service, the care of animals, or even medicine, but she chose painting and sculpture, art forms that require...more
Florence Nightingale called nursing "one of the Fine Arts" and described it in terms of artistic production: "Nursing is an art: ad, if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion, as hard as a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work." These two forms of visual art are an interesting choice. She could have compared nursing to farming, religious service, the care of animals, or even medicine, but she chose painting and sculpture, art forms that require...more
Publisher: At my job, people die,” writes Theresa Brown, capturing both the burden and the singular importance of her profession. CRITICAL CARE chronicles Brown, a former English Professor at Tufts University, on her first year as an RN in medical oncology and the emotional ups and downs she encounters in caring for strangers. In contrast to other medical memoirs that highlight the work of doctors, this book focuses on the critical role played by nurses as health care providers.
Brown walks reade...more
May 10, 2010
Jaime
added it
Don't read this book while eating, it might make you a little queasy. And maybe read it by yourself, because there might be tears.
Last time I read a medical memoir, I cringed at how the author repeatedly dehumanized patients. When I reviewed that book, I had to go back and find the offending passages and it took me some time to flip through to them. Not wanting to do that again, I started reading this book pencil in hand, ready to underline and dog-ear where necessary.
This book, however, remains...more
Last time I read a medical memoir, I cringed at how the author repeatedly dehumanized patients. When I reviewed that book, I had to go back and find the offending passages and it took me some time to flip through to them. Not wanting to do that again, I started reading this book pencil in hand, ready to underline and dog-ear where necessary.
This book, however, remains...more
Apr 22, 2010
Lauren
added it
It was an interesting read for sure. It follows the author, Theresa, as she learns her way around as a brand new nurse on the Oncology floor. She has to grapple with making snap decisions, to wrangling the hospital bureaucracy, to finding a balance with her life inside and out of the hospital. It was an interesting take on things, for sure, like when she had to visit the ER herself, she knew exactly how to handle the staff. Once they caught wind she was "one of theirs," albeit being on a differe...more
The author of this memoir used to be an English professor, but she chucked all that to become a nurse. The memoir is about her first year as a nurse on a medical oncology ward. The book is well-written, but ultimately there's just nothing special about it. It's essentially a series of stories about caring for patients with cancer - there's value in that, but it doesn't really stand out for any reason.
I would have liked the author to be more self-reflective. It's a big change from Professor to fi...more
I would have liked the author to be more self-reflective. It's a big change from Professor to fi...more
Interesting book and truly an accurate representation of Nursing on a busy hospital unit. I am an RN who works with new nurses and I found this book helpful in reminding me what it is like to be experiencing patient care and the complexities with it in the hospital setting for a new nurse. I love the Nursing profession and was hopeful that I could give this book 5 stars when I started reading it, but I could not. Altho the book was interesting, it was not a compelling read and the story line was...more
Reading this book was a rather personal experience for me as I have had an extended stay in a hospital. I was fascinated by the candor with which Ms. Brown describes a "day in the life" of a nurse. Nurses are very busy and burdened with much responsibility, but as the author points out caring for the patient is the most important thing. Paperwork and hierachies may monopolize much of a nurses attention but ultimately most nurses hearts are in the right place. I hope many nurses will read this bo...more
Short but extremely readable - the author's compassion and patience really comes through, especially when she relates those moments between herself and her patients that she most strongly cherishes/remembers. I enjoyed the interesting glimpse into the bureaucracy of the hospital setting too, it's almost scary that these are the people in charge of your care sometimes. [return]The emotional or otherwise challenging parts of the story that involved the author were sometimes hard to get a read on t...more
This is an unstintingly honest memoir of the author's experience in a nursing career, mostly caring for cancer patients. She deals with both the medical side and the human side of the job, and explains the details of the treatments without drowning the reader in jargon. Her book can be quite graphic at times, particularly in chapter two when a patient's smooth, ordinary-looking back suddenly bursts open Alien-style, and in the chapter "Doctors Don't Do Poop," where she talks about the scatologic...more
This is one important read about what it is that nurse's really do. I admire all nurses, I always have, for all that they do. One could argue that there is stress in many different kinds of jobs, but when life and death depend on just what you do and how you do it, it puts nursing on a whole different level. I've complained in the past about the stressful times I've had at work, because it was like holiday shopping time, and it lasts for a short time, but boy is it ever crazy when you are going...more
A memoir of learning a medical profession on the front lines similar to Final Exam or Weekends at Bellevue, but in this case the author is not a doctor but an English professor who retrained as a nurse. Working on an oncology floor, she learns about cancer treatments, the interpersonal politics of a hospital, and how best to approach patients with a difficult diagnosis. This was a perfectly good entry in a genre that I typically find worthwhile, since I work in a hospital but not in a clinical a...more
Being a very recent nursing school graduate and preparing for my career as a nurse, I found this book very inspiring and helpful. I've had encounters with death that have made me very uncomfortable at work (at a workout center) and reading this book has helped me "systematically desensitize" in being able to cope with it. I felt peace in that after seeking counseling after one of my deaths which was incredibly gruesome, that Theresa had felt a sense of depression after her sudden deaths. Thank y...more
Picked this up in the D.C. train station and read it straight through (almost) on the way back to Philadelphia. A fast and interesting look at learning to be a nurse after leaving English professor-dom. Brown nurses in the oncology ward and her account of patients as they go through the process of dealing with cancer is moving, her accounts of unexpected patient deaths (condition As) is stunning and helped me understand a lot of what goes on in hospitals. I particularly liked the chapter "Doctor...more
Luckily Ms. Brown is not only a nurse, but she also used to teach writing on the college level. This is not a straightforward memoir with a solid-line narrative, but instead it's a series of long vignettes about her experiences changing to a nursing career later in life.
Just like any job, there are difficult people to work with and bad work environments. She also talks about heartbreaking patients, the difficulty of learning all the medicine, and some truly gross situations (don't read this book...more
Just like any job, there are difficult people to work with and bad work environments. She also talks about heartbreaking patients, the difficulty of learning all the medicine, and some truly gross situations (don't read this book...more
A well written, honest account of what it's like to work as a new nurse on a medical unit (in this case oncology). The author really captures the good, bad and the ugly including the unfortunate tendency for many experienced nurses to "eat their young" (I first heard the expression that "nurses eat their young" while a nursing student and I have to say there's definitely some truth to it). On the other hand, she also does a great job of illustrating how rewarding nursing can be. A balanced, real...more
This book is about a woman who had a Ph.D in English and gave up her job at the University to become a nurse. I once worked on an oncology unit at a hospital and I saw how hard the nurses worked and this book is right on target. You have good nurses and bad, but this woman learned a lesson from all of the death she saw around her. The lesson is savor life and enjoy it, because it only comes around once. Don't put off things until you retire or have the money. Enjoy it while you are healthy and...more
Sep 29, 2010
Eva Leger
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Eva by:
library
Shelves:
b-non-fiction,
medical
I'd recommend this for anyone looking to get a glimpse into what it takes to be a R.N., especially in an oncology unit. This was interesting for me because I have an on-line friend going through chemo right now and never having had any personal experience with this treatment I had no idea really what is happening to her. There is so much I don't know still but I know more now than before.
There's a nice amount of stories about Brown's patients and to me that's always a plus. Brown seems to be an...more
There's a nice amount of stories about Brown's patients and to me that's always a plus. Brown seems to be an...more
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I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It surprised me, pleasantly, in many ways. It let me down only in that it ended too soon.
When I first picked up this book, I expected the author to merely parade grisly experiences before me, making me thankful for my civilian life and giving me a new-found awe for those who can handle this most difficult profession. I wasn't really expecting much in the way of wording or decorum. When I read that brown is a former professor who taught at prestigious Tufts Univer...more
When I first picked up this book, I expected the author to merely parade grisly experiences before me, making me thankful for my civilian life and giving me a new-found awe for those who can handle this most difficult profession. I wasn't really expecting much in the way of wording or decorum. When I read that brown is a former professor who taught at prestigious Tufts Univer...more
This was an interesting realistic story about the nursing profession. I am a registered nurse and was able to relate to many aspects of this book. Theresa loves her job and her positive approach to the profession and nursing care allows her to be a wonderful nurse. This book was sad, funny, inspiring and uplifting. I recommend it to readers like myself, a part of the profession but also to lay people. It will allow the lay person to have a greater appreciation of nurses and their trying but yet...more
Compassionate, inspiring, funny, joyous, moving, and true. Theresa Brown's account of becoming an oncology nurse after a career as an english professor is sobering at times. For anyone that works in the heathcare field, especially in an emergency room (I am biased), on an oncology floor, or in an ICU will truly understand what Theresa went through. I really enjoyed reading her book on the triumphs and trials of her cancer patients. She really shows that "caring for a patient means much more than...more
This book is about a new nurse's experiences in an oncology ward. Unlike other books about working in hospitals, most of the patients that go through the oncology ward end up dying. After reading this book, I was reminded of how fortunate I am to not have cancer and how I should enjoy life right now. There weren't as many exciting twists and turns in this book as there would be if it were about the ER, but I still felt it was interesting to learn about what goes on in other parts of the hospital...more
I picked this book up because I'm transitioning from journalist to nurse, and it was great for me to see someone older than me had taken a similarly incongruent leap. I read it for this reason alone and it helped inspire me to keep going, on a practical level. I agree with another reader who wanted Brown to be a little more self-reflective. I enjoyed how honest Brown was in describing overcoming her own fears as a new nurse and handling different situations with patients, families and doctors.
May 21, 2011
Elaine D
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
nurses, healthcare professionals,
Recommended to Elaine by:
N/A
Critical Care was a serious and heartfelt look into the life of a nurse. It really made me appreciate the job that they do and it proves that it takes a truly special person to do that job. Through the tales that she tells in the book, you get a very raw introduction to Theresa's nurturing personality and brave take on healthcare. The story is refreshingly candid and truthful when presenting all things that go on inside a hospital. Overall, the book tugged on my heartstrings while still being ed...more
Written by an English professor-turned-RN, this book chronicles the stories of the author's first year as a nurse. Every word rings true to someone that has been through it. I've personally experienced everything mentioned in the book, and every frustration and emotion is so perfectly described. My only complaint is that EVERY medical term is explained for the layperson, which can be annoying for the medical-professional reading this. It takes away from the already too-short book.
I am an academic and often think of my work as being a bit too removed from the realities of life and death than I would like it to be. I often think of hospitals, as this scary, amazing, different microcosm that I know nothing about, and of nurses and doctors as the people that actually deal with "it". This book is really about this, and the fact that Theresa Brown used to be an academic, well... It is a very honest, very well written, very instructive read.
Having only just graduated from nusing school myself, I can vouch for the accuracy of Brown's observations. I have enjoyed Brown's articles for the NY Times but, whereas those are more issue-oriented, the stories in the book were more personal. In some of her anecdotes, she seemed to court trouble. I came away from the book with the sense I'd rather read about Brown's career than find myself working with her.
I would've liked this book more if Theresa hadn't portrayed herself as essentially flawless. She talks about being a novice, yes, but she always seems to have said the right thing at the right time, never messed up an order or a medication or forgot something. Every nurse makes mistakes. Still I think it's a good and accurate insight into nursing for patients, doctors and other non-nurses.
Really appreciated this book. As a floor nurse in a large urban hopital, her statement about having a love/hate relationship with nursing rang so true for me. I found this book comforting. Very on target about hospital politics, the pure insaneness that can be floor nursing, but also the joy of making a difference in peoples live and forging a very unique relationship with patients and their families.
I received this book as a giveaway win and thoroughly enjoyed it as I am a new nurse also. It was written with new nurses in mind and what they face. Even though the book has a lot of stories about the death of patients the stories were told with compassion, love and caring.I would definitely recommend this book to other nurses and already have a new nurses in mind to pass it on to.
The story of how an English professor from Tufts choose to become a nurse. I felt like I should like this book more, but I didn't. I didn't feel like the author was someone I would want I hang out with. Her anecdotes about nursing and patients were powerful, but the book lacked something indescribable which would have allowed me to lose myself in the story.
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Theresa Brown, R.N., lives and works in the Pittsburgh area. She received her B.S.N. from the University of Pittsburgh and, during what she calls her past life, a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago. Brown is a regular contributor to the New York Times blog "Well." Her essay "Perhaps Death Is Proud; More Reason to Savor Life" was included in The Best American Science Writing 2009 and T...more
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“For where else can I go to sample daily the richness of life in all its profound chaos?”
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