Books & Anthologies

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Shift, this richly drawn portrait of four nurses in four different sectors of our broken healthcare system reveals where solutions are actually possible—to make care about people rather than profits.

Theresa Brown worked as a oncology nurse for years before finally burning out, but instead of leaving the healthcare system behind entirely, she set out to find places where it's actually working. She embedded with nurses in four key areas of care that cover the human lifespan--a maternity center in Pittsburgh, a primary care facility in Portland, an elder care home in Denver, and hospice services in the midwest and in Connecticut--and came back with gripping, and often deeply moving, on-the-ground stories of patient-centered care. Taking us into the daily lives and the exhausting yet rewarding shifts of these four practitioners, Brown gives readers a rare window into what kinds of healthcare facilities are actually doing things well, taking care of patients, keeping things affordable, and supporting staff.

Even as the system feels like it's crumbling around us, Brown reveals scalable solutions and reminds us that there's still hope--all through the eyes of the people we know keep the whole thing running: nurses.

From the mammogram that would change her life through her diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, New York Times bestselling author Theresa Brown tells a poignant and powerful story about having breast cancer in the United States. Despite her training and years of experience as an oncology and hospice nurse, Brown finds it difficult to navigate the medical maze from the other side of the bed, especially because she knows that speaking up and being labeled a "difficult" patient could mean she'll get worse care. Like the almost four million women in this country living with breast cancer, Brown has a treatable form of the disease, but in Healing she shows that, though our for-profit health care industry may "cure" us, it can leave many of us feeling alienated and uncared for. "People failed me when I was a patient and I failed patients when working as a nurse. I see that now," she writes. As she did so brilliantly in her New York Times bestseller, The Shift, Brown relays the unforgettable details of her daily life as a nurse, this time looking back at some of her own cases and considering what she didn't know then about the warping effects of fear and the healing virtues of compassion. Healing is a must-read for anyone who has ever interacted (or ever will interact) with medicine, which is all of us.

Practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day on a busy teaching hospital's cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, lives can be lost, life-altering treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Unfolding in real time--under the watchful eyes of this dedicated professional and insightful chronicler of events--The Shift gives an unprecedented view into the individual struggles as well as the larger truths about medicine in this country. By shift's end, we have witnessed something profound about hope and humanity.

"At my job, people die," writes Theresa Brown, capturing both the burden and the singular importance of her profession. Brown, a former English professor at Tufts University, chronicles here her first year as an R.N. in medical oncology. As she does so, Brown illuminates the unique role of nurses in health care, giving us a deeply moving portrait of the day-to-day work nurses do: caring for the person who is ill, not just the illness itself.

Critical Care takes us with Brown as she struggles to tend to her patients' needs, both physical (the rigors of chemotherapy) and emotional (their late-night fears). Along the way, we see the work nurses do to fight for their patients' dignity, in spite of punishing treatments and an often uncaring hospital bureaucracy. We also see how a twelve-hour day of caring for the seriously ill gives Brown herself a deeper appreciation of what it means to be alive. Ultimately, this is a book about embracing life, whether in times of sickness or health.

As she takes us into the place where patients and nurses meet, Brown shows us the power of human connection in the face of mortality. She does so with a keen sense of humor and remarkable powers of observation, making Critical Care a powerful contribution to the literature of medicine.

Teamwork is essential to improving the quality of patient care and reducing medical errors and injuries. But how does teamwork really function? And what are the barriers that sometimes prevent smart, well-intentioned people from building and sustaining effective teams? Collaborative Caring takes an unusual approach to the topic of teamwork. Editors Suzanne Gordon, David L. Feldman, MD, and Michael Leonard, MD, have gathered fifty engaging first-person narratives provided by people from various health care professions.

Each story vividly portrays a different dimension of teamwork, capturing the complexity—and sometimes messiness—of moving from theory to practice when it comes to creating genuine teams in health care. The stories help us understand what it means to be a team leader and an assertive team member. They vividly depict how patients are left out of or included on the team and what it means to bring teamwork training into a particular workplace. Exploring issues like psychological safety, patient advocacy, barriers to teamwork, and the kinds of institutional and organizational efforts that remove such barriers, the health care professionals who speak in this book ultimately have one consistent message: teamwork makes patient care safer and health care careers more satisfying. These stories are an invaluable tool for those moving toward genuine interprofessional and intraprofessional teamwork.

Teamwork is essential to improving the quality of patient care and reducing medical errors and injuries. But how does teamwork really function? And what are the barriers that sometimes prevent smart, well-intentioned people from building and sustaining effective teams? Collaborative Caring takes an unusual approach to the topic of teamwork. Editors Suzanne Gordon, Dr. David L. Feldman, and Dr. Michael Leonard have gathered fifty engaging first-person narratives provided by people from various health care professions.Each story vividly portrays a different dimension of teamwork, capturing the complexity—and sometimes messiness—of moving from theory to practice when it comes to creating genuine teams in health care. The stories help us understand what it means to be a team leader and an assertive team member. They vividly depict how patients are left out of or included on the team and what it means to bring teamwork training into a particular workplace. Exploring issues like psychological safety, patient advocacy, barriers to teamwork, and the kinds of institutional and organizational efforts that remove such barriers, the health care professionals who speak in this book ultimately have one consistent message: teamwork makes patient care safer and health care careers more satisfying. These stories are an invaluable tool for those moving toward genuine interprofessional and intraprofessional teamwork.

This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses, who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first “sticks,” first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them through long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession.

The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more “important” procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager is the sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients.

What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.

The Best American Medical Writing 2009 highlights the year’s most poignant work from the genre’s fi nest authors— complete with an introduction by best-selling author and renowned transplant surgeon Pauline W. Chen. The Best American Medical Writing 2009 celebrates incisive writing on the subject of medicine and its practice. This inaugural volume features writings by the likes of preeminent writers such as Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, and is culled from diverse sources such as The New Yorker, The New England Journal of Medicine, Salon, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Discover, and many more.

Edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and bestselling author Natalie Angier, The Best American Science Writing 2009 collects into one volume the premier science writing of the year. Distinguished by new and impressive voices as well as some of the foremost names in science writing—Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande among them—this anthology provides a comprehensive overview of where science has taken us—and where it is headed.