Review | Book review: anthology of nurses’ stories recalls the sharp end of care
Carolyn Jourdan’s assemblage of stories varies in quality and suffers from shoddy proofreading, but they show how the vocation has changed since the second world war
by Carolyn Jourdan
Athenaeus Media
Adding to the many books on health care is this collection of nurses’ stories about their important work. Unlike the well-written volumes by doctors (think Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal), this collection suffers from sloppy proofreading and recollections of varying quality. Published seemingly verbatim, the stories include such memories as, “When we rolled the man over he burped really big”, which tells of a nurse who almost fainted when a dead patient expelled air. Still, there are enlightening and moving offerings from about 60 nurses (overwhelmingly women), beginning during the second world war. Back then, nursing involved little paperwork – now the job requires more hours spent writing reports than serving the sick. Still, as “Catherine” says in the section on delivering babies, these days 90 per cent of preemies survive, in contrast to a quarter in the past (we’re not told when).
Many of the stories are gruesome, especially those in ER settings, although a few lighthearted moments lift the gloom, such as when an 85-year-old patient, high on drugs, swings naked from an IV pole. Understandably, doctors play second fiddle in the tales, although it took a medic to suggest Jourdan write the book.