When chicken soup isn't enough : stories of nurses standing up for themselves, their patients, and their profession / edited by Suzanne Gordon.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gordon, Suzanne, 1945-

Series:

Culture and politics of health care work.

The culture and politics of health care work

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nursing.

Nursing--Social aspects.

Communication in nursing.

Patient advocacy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (269 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : ILR Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The reassuring bromides of "chicken soup for the soul" provide little solace for nurses-and the people they serve-in real-life hospitals, nursing homes, schools of nursing, and other settings. In the minefield of modern health care, there are myriad obstacles to quality patient care-including work overload, inadequate funds for nursing education and research, and poor communication between and within the professions, to name only a few. The seventy RNs whose stories are collected here by the award-winning journalist Suzanne Gordon know that effective advocacy isn't easy. It takes nurses willing to stand up for themselves, their coworkers, their patients, and the public. When Chicken Soup Isn't Enough brings together compelling personal narratives from a wide range of nurses from across the globe. The assembled profiles in professional courage provide new insight into the daily challenges that RNs face in North America and abroad-and how they overcome them with skill, ingenuity, persistence, and individual and collective advocacy at work and in the community. In this collection, we meet RNs working at the bedside, providing home care, managing hospital departments, teaching and doing research, lobbying for quality patient care, and campaigning for health care reform. Their stories are funny, sad, deeply moving, inspiring, and always revealing of the different ways that nurses make their voices heard in the service of their profession. The risks and rewards, joys and sorrows, of nursing have rarely been captured in such vivid first-person accounts. Gordon and the authors of the essays contained in this book have much to say about the strengths and shortcomings of health care today-and the role that nurses play as irreplaceable agents of change.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1. Set Up to Lose, but Playing to Win

A Covert Operation / Bartholomew, Kathleen

Saving Patients from Dr. Death / Hoffman, Toni

A Lesson for the Principal / Hubka, Kathy

The Delicate Discharge / Johnson, Ruth

No Patience for Poison / Carle, Brenda

Mr. CEO, Will You Marry Me? / Owley, Candice

Intolerable Behavior / Geldard, Eleanor

One Is One Too Many / Smith, Thomas

A Comfortable Cover Up / Kendall, Jenny

Stacking the Cards in Our Favor / Licata, Ro

Part 2. We Don't Have to Eat Our Young

Mentor Unto Others . . . / Robinson-Blake, Clola

A Dose of Diplomacy / Schroeder, Donna

Standing Up for What You Don't Know / Schaefer, Judy

Broken Bones and Ice Cream / Brous, Edie

Treating Transition Shock / Duchscher, Judy Boychuk

The Empty-Hands Round / Sáenz de Ormijana, Amaia

Part 3. Excuse Me, Doctor, You're Wrong

Eye/I Advocacy / Black, Jane

As If the Patient Can Hear You / Doty, Clarke

Don't Just Add Nurses and Stir / Rankin, Janet

Gloves Off / Valentine, Nancy Marie

The Overlooked Symptom / Stecher, Jo

Hope in the Midst of Tragedy / Barden, Connie

The Advantages of Age / Phipps, Marion

An Expiration Date for Indignancy / Spiers, Madeline

What Hospice Is For / Chaisson, Jean

A Real Pain / Scamperle, Paola

Part 4. Not Part of the Job Description

I'll Call in Sick If I Have To / Egger, Barbara

Doing the Heavy Lifting / Baker, Martha

Attacked by a Patient, Abandoned by My Hospital / Richardson, Charlene L.

The Samurai Sword / Duffy, Anne

Only When It's Safe / Gerard, Bernie

The Red Shirts Are Coming / Tonges, Mary Crabtree

Not Saints or Sisters / Morieson, Belinda

Part 5. When One Advocate Can Make a Difference

Putting Lymphedema on the Map / Thiadens, Saskia R. J.

An Inconvenient Nurse / Henson, Faith

A Safe Delivery from Domestic Abuse / Stevens, Kristin

To Do the Unthinkable / Adams, Barry L.

The Only Nurse for Miles Around / Bjarnadóttir, Dagbjört

More Than Boo-boos and Band-Aids / Stewart, Judy

First Responders in the AIDS Epidemic / Ferri, Richard S.

Part 6. Choking on Sugar and Spice: Challenging Nurses' Public Image

Silenced during the SARS Epidemic / Grinspun, Doris

In the Halls of Academe / Fagin, Claire M.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Fitzpatrick, Lisa

Real Nurses Don't Wear Wings / Rich, Victoria L.

The Lady with a Loud Voice / Bryner, Jeanne

Taking on the Terminator / Bermudez, Vicki

Defending the Nursing Profession over Dinner / Kozub, Elizabeth

Remaking the Power Nurse / Wagner, Pierre-André

Health Policy from Nurses' Point of View / Kanamori, Yuko

Maybe We Should Be Bragging / Aðalsteinsdóttir, Guðrún

Finessing the Chairman of the Board / Blount, Carol

Called to Duty at 30,000 Feet / Converso, Ann

Part 7. Applied Research

Nurse PI on a Clinical Trial / Dracup, Kathleen

The Need for Nurse Evaluators / Moreno-Casbas, Teresa

Research and Nursing- Home Reform / Harrington, Charlene

How Nurses Make It Work / Montgomery, Kathryn Lothschuetz

Teamwork through Research / Sharp, Lena

Keep Asking Questions / Clarke, Sean

No More Martys / Lipscomb, Jane

Taking On Conventional Wisdom / Hafsteinsdóttir, Thóra B.

Part 8. Sticking Together

Winning Recognition of Nursing Expertise / Brous, Edie

A Union Just for Nurses / Ribetto, Massimo

We Rained on Their Parade / Sheridan-Gonzalez, Judy

Protesting on the Red Carpet / DiGiacomo, Kelly

Saving the Carney / Connolly, Penny

Part 9. Still Fighting

The Male Midwife / Trueman, Gregg

Fighting for Our Vets / O'Leary, Edmond

We Are the Experts / Higgins, Karen

A Collective Voice / Sosne, Diane

We Will Not Be Silenced / Youngson, Carol

Standing By One Patient / Simon, Faith

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780801457401

0801457408

9780801458644

0801458641

OCLC:

922998071