[.ca] Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines (ISBN 0801474280)

From Amazon.com:
In today's era of high-technology medicine, Suzanne Gordon, editor of books such as Caregiving: Readings in Knowledge, Practice, Ethics, and Politics, brings us the story of three nurses who work to humanize the experience of receiving medical care. We meet Nancy Rumplik, an outpatient nurse in an ambulatory clinic, as she prevents a nearly fatal allergic reaction to a course of chemotherapy. We meet nurse practitioner Ellen Kitchen, who provides home care to an 88-year-old man who does not want surgery for his prostate cancer. And we meet Jeannie Chaisson, a medical clinical nurse specialist, whose work continues after her shift ends as she helps a husband and daughter come to terms with a loved one's desire to stop treatment and succumb to death. Through their accounts Gordon tells us much about the health care system and about the nursing attention that allows people to tolerate the painful treatments and difficult choices that accompany high-technology medicine. While Life Support draws attention to the often invisible work of nurses, it also highlights their plight in a health care system that increasingly focuses on the bottom line. Gordon painstakingly makes the point that it is not just surgery, ventilators, and dialysis machines that offer life support in the health care system. She shows how these nurses create an environment in which high-technology medicine can thrive, but that is not devoid of human care and concern. We learn how experienced nurses teach their colleagues, smooth over insensitive treatment by doctors, tend to illness, and bring dignity to death when treatment no longer works--all of which are roles that could not necessarily be filled by lower-paid, less-experienced personnel. In chronicling the work of Rumplik, Kitchen, and Chaisson, Gordon brings a story of the soul of America's health care system. --Amy Sessler

Summarizes nursing's role in the current health care arena.:
A must read for all those working IN or WITH the profession of nursing. Gordon discusses how the changes in our health care system have affected both the nurses role and quality patient care issues. The essential need for collaboration of all health care personnel is woven throughout the content. I required this book for a senior nursing course I just taught at Wayne State University in Detroit and the students were most impressed with the book and its approach to nursing, medicine and health care. A must read for nurses, physicians, hospital administration, potential students and the general public. Afterall, we are all potential patients and we should be aware of what is happening to the largest population of health care providers, the nurses!

Required reading for anyone who cares about health care:
"I work with nurses every day but it took Suzanne Gordon to open my eyes to see all they do and how important-and under-appreciated-their work is. She shows the folly of the current trend toward de-emphasizing the skilled, multifaceted caregiving of registered nurses. Life Support should be required reading for all doctors, health policy decision-makers and anyone else who cares about the future of our healthcare system. It's well-written, moving and vitally important." -Timothy McCall, M.D., Author of Examining Your Doctor

Must Read for EVERYONE:
I've been a nurse for several years, and I got the book on recommendation from another nurse friend of mine. I was, and continue to be, amazed at the power of this book. It highlighted in stark words and numbers, problems facing health care today, while at the same time brightening the work with the all too human touch of nurses, patients and doctors. Once you read this book, you will understand why legislation such as The Patient Safety Act came to be, and why it is needed. It describes why nursing is so necessary, why even bathing or feeding a patient are not always within the realm of tasks to be assigned to unlicensed personnel. I urge everyone to read this book, and be touched by Gordon's powerful writing. Diana Katseyeanis, RN

Essential reading for all health care consumers .:
The most under rated people in our society are nurses,this is an introduction to the ever present caregivers in healthcare today.The most varied role and most significant in all aspects of health care is the nurse.This was a wonderful read for all of those who may ever be the receiver of any aspect of their care from nurses in our country, basically everyone,a must have.For those considering the profession as a career,and the family members who would like an overview of "all in a days work", this will invoke serious thought.Yes, I am a nurse and for me to recommend a book written on nursing....kudos to all involved in the creation.

Physician Recommends Life Support for Peers & Patients:
This is a very moving and important book, which should be required reading for all medical students and doctors. Ms. Gordon who spent three years following three extra-ordinary nurses learned (and in the book presents) more knowledge and insights about sickness, pain, caring, and the health care system than my medicial residents learn during their three year (internal medicine) residency. Each of the three nurses covers a different part of the health care map (oncology chemotherapy nurse, home health nurse, and inpatient nurse) and illustrates the critical and often invisible role nurses play in health care. What the book does so ably is to highlight these special caring roles, and then place them in the context of what is happening in the U.S. health care system today. Ms. Gordon, an advocate for universal health insurance and consumer accoutablity starkly contrasts the bright light these and thousands of other of the quiet heros in nursing, with the dark side of market driven health care that threatens these values and heroism. If for nothing else, the book is worth reading for a useful and interesting history of the practice of nursing, which is interwoven with the stories of these three nurses. Nurses are the essence of quality and this book is a high quality look at their important and endangered role. (Dr. Gordon Schiff internist who directs the Clinical Quality Research Unit at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.