When Chicken Soup Isn't Enough : : Stories of Nurses Standing Up for Themselves, Their Patients, and Their Profession / / ed. by Suzanne Gordon.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Backlist 2000-2013
• MitwirkendeR: Adams, Barry L.,; Aðalsteinsdóttir, Guðrún,; Baker, Martha,; Barden, Connie,; Bartholomew, Kathleen,; Bermudez, Vicki,; Bjarnadóttir, Dagbjört,; Black, Jane,; Blount, Carol,; Brous, Edie,; Bryner, Jeanne,; Carle, Brenda,; Chaisson, Jean,; Clarke, Sean,; Connolly, Penny,; Converso, Ann,; DiGiacomo, Kelly,; Doty, Clarke,; Dracup, Kathleen,; Duchscher, Judy Boychuk,; Duffy, Anne,; Egger, Barbara,; Fagin, Claire M.,; Ferri, Richard S.,; Fitzpatrick, Lisa,; Geldard, Eleanor,; Gerard, Bernie,; Grinspun, Doris,; Hafsteinsdóttir, Thóra B.,; Harrington, Charlene,; Henson, Faith,; Higgins, Karen,; Hoffman, Toni,; Hubka, Kathy,; Johnson, Ruth,; Kanamori, Yuko,; Kendall, Jenny,; Kozub, Elizabeth,; Licata, Ro,; Lipscomb, Jane,; Montgomery, Kathryn Lothschuetz,; Moreno-Casbas, Teresa,; Morieson, Belinda,; Owley, Candice,; O’Leary, Edmond,; Phipps, Marion,; Rankin, Janet,; Ribetto, Massimo,; Rich, Victoria L.,; Richardson, Charlene L.,; Robinson-Blake, Clola,; Scamperle, Paola,; Schaefer, Judy,; Schroeder, Donna,; Sharp, Lena,; Sheridan-Gonzalez, Judy,; Simon, Faith,; Smith, Thomas,; Sosne, Diane,; Spiers, Madeline,; Stecher, Jo,; Stevens, Kristin,; Stewart, Judy,; Sáenz de Ormijana, Amaia,; Thiadens, Saskia R. J.,; Tonges, Mary Crabtree,; Trueman, Gregg,; Valentine, Nancy Marie,; Wagner, Pierre-André,; Youngson, Carol,
• HerausgeberIn: Gordon, Suzanne,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1. Set Up to Lose, but Playing to Win -- A Covert Operation -- Saving Patients from Dr. Death -- A Lesson for the Principal -- The Delicate Discharge -- No Patience for Poison -- Mr. CEO, Will You Marry Me? -- Intolerable Behavior -- One Is One Too Many -- A Comfortable Cover Up -- Stacking the Cards in Our Favor -- Part 2. We Don’t Have to Eat Our Young -- Mentor Unto Others . . . -- A Dose of Diplomacy -- Standing Up for What You Don’t Know -- Broken Bones and Ice Cream -- Treating Transition Shock -- The Empty-Hands Round -- Part 3. Excuse Me, Doctor, You’re Wrong -- Eye/I Advocacy -- As If the Patient Can Hear You -- Don’t Just Add Nurses and Stir -- Gloves Off -- The Overlooked Symptom -- Hope in the Midst of Tragedy -- The Advantages of Age -- An Expiration Date for Indignancy -- What Hospice Is For -- A Real Pain -- Part 4. Not Part of the Job Description -- I’ll Call in Sick If I Have To -- Doing the Heavy Lifting -- Attacked by a Patient, Abandoned by My Hospital -- The Samurai Sword -- Only When It’s Safe -- The Red Shirts Are Coming -- Not Saints or Sisters -- Part 5. When One Advocate Can Make a Difference -- Putting Lymphedema on the Map -- An Inconvenient Nurse -- A Safe Delivery from Domestic Abuse -- To Do the Unthinkable -- The Only Nurse for Miles Around -- More Than Boo-boos and Band-Aids -- First Responders in the AIDS Epidemic -- Part 6. Choking on Sugar and Spice: Challenging Nurses′ Public Image -- Silenced during the SARS Epidemic -- In the Halls of Academe -- R-E-S-P-E-C-T -- Real Nurses Don’t Wear Wings -- The Lady with a Loud Voice -- Taking on the Terminator -- Defending the Nursing Profession over Dinner -- Remaking the Power Nurse -- Health Policy from Nurses′ Point of View -- Maybe We Should Be Bragging -- Finessing the Chairman of the Board -- Called to Duty at 30,000 Feet -- Part 7. Applied Research -- Nurse PI on a Clinical Trial -- The Need for Nurse Evaluators -- Research and Nursing- Home Reform -- How Nurses Make It Work -- Teamwork through Research -- Keep Asking Questions -- No More Martys -- Taking On Conventional Wisdom -- Part 8. Sticking Together -- Winning Recognition of Nursing Expertise -- A Union Just for Nurses -- We Rained on Their Parade -- Protesting on the Red Carpet -- Saving the Carney -- Part 9. Still Fighting -- The Male Midwife -- Fighting for Our Vets -- We Are the Experts -- A Collective Voice -- We Will Not Be Silenced -- Standing By One Patient