William B. Patrick

I'm a nurse. I enjoyed reading this book because I like nursing, and I like reading about other types of nursing. I found it slightly incoherent, as I didn't really see a main theme to the stories, and I thought the stories themselves read like someone in conversation instead of someone sitting down to write a story. And I noticed a lot more mention of a program called Excelsior and a program called Regents than I'd ever heard of before. But I was mostly enjoying the book, including reading about types of nursing I wasn't familiar with (flight nursing! Terrifying). Mostly I found the stories too short and wished for more background on each nurse!

Then I read the Acknowledgments and found out that this book is published by Excelsior, a distance learning program, and that each nurse in the book is a graduate of their program. That explained why there were so many mentions of the program, and distance-learning in general, in the book. That includes one mention of testifying to save the program from being excluded from licensing nurses in a state. I felt fairly deceived after I read the acknowledgments and it really changed my view of the book; I felt it was a 200+ advertisement for the school. I don't hold it against the nurses involved (it also specifies they weren't paid) but I do feel deceived and I feel that information should be made clear in a foreword or even on the back of the book. The acknowledgment also goes into the process of how the book was put together, including that the stories were verbal interviews, not stories written by the nurses themselves. This explains the conversational "feel" that I had picked up.

If you're interested in certain types of nurses, go ahead and read the book. The nurses interviewed are honest and tell their own stories well. Just know what you're reading.… (més)

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program here on LibraryThing. Having read and enjoyed several books written recently by doctors, I was excited to read a book written by nurses.

This book is organized as a collection of short memoirs based on interviews with 23 nurses. Their stories and experiences in the field are varied, even within the course of a single career. I would estimate that the majority of nurses included in this book have worked in at least two or three totally different areas of medicine (eg. hospice care, flight nurses, ER, trauma, obstetrics, etc). I have to say that I thought more than once that nursing seems to be a career that allows an extremely wide range of opportunities! All the nurses come across as caring, professional, intelligent, and very highly-educated, and it was a pleasure to read their stories.

There are two main areas where I think this book could have been improved. The first is that I would have liked to read more in-depth accounts from each. Covering 23 nurses in 234 pages resulted in many stories ending as soon as I felt I got familiar with each person. The second thing was that I felt almost all the nurses' "voices" sounded the same. I understand that this was compiled into text by the author (William Patrick) from verbal interviews, so his writing style and voice would necessarily come through all of them, but I found myself more engrossed in reading about those nurses with a more distinct personality.

Overall I very much enjoyed this book, and it has definitely increased my appreciation for nurses and their profession.… (més)