The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives
$24.95
Holder of both a PhD in English and a RN, Theresa Brown takes us through a twelve hour day on the oncology ward where she cares for four patients. The patients’ medical conditions are reviewed, their personalities outlined, their treatments described and the various hospital affiliated personnel are detailed. Elaborative comments embellish the quirks of patients along with coworkers, doctors, fellows, residents, interns, and orderlies. She carefully explains the perceived ranking among the hospital staff.
The author occasionally takes poetic license to portray the sadness innate to the illness being treated. Too many dysfunctional procedures demanded in medical care are acerbically mentioned. While acting as a nurse and counselor to her patients, she is constantly applying plastic gloves, tearing open sterile packaging, connecting IV tubes, and interacting with the medical personnel.
From this chronicle, most of her nursing time is spent on the phone, at the computer filling in medical records, or completing paper-work. One gets the impression that this latter aspect receives more attention than the patients themselves. This twelve hour shift is presented as an extremely draining experience, and this tedious recording of a day in the life of a nurse may dissuade some from pursuing this profession.
Additional information
| Book Author | Theresa Brown |
|---|---|
| Issue | October 2015 |
| Publisher | Algonquin |
| Page Count | 272 pages |
| Format | Hard |
| ISBN | 9781616203207 |
| ASIN | 161620320X |
| Publication Date | 2015-Sep-22 |
| Star Count | 3 |
“The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives”
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Consider that the United States and France had recently rebelled against their kings in order to establish human rights. By contrast, L’Ouverture did not want to break the bonds with France; however, their rule proved too constraining for him.
It is interesting to note that a man who began life as a slave became literate enough to negotiate successfully in the world arena and best those who considered him inferior by nature. He proved to be a brilliant strategist and policy framer. This is an interesting biography and well worth the read.
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This book is filled with fragments and stories from a famous life and the people he knew. There are nice photographs included of Mankiewicz’s famous father, uncle, and family. If you have no famous favorite uncle to tell you stories, then this is the book for you.
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