Nursing America One Year Behind the Nursing Stations of an Inner-City Hospital

by Balfour, Sandy

• ISBN13: 9781585422814
• ISBN10: 1585422819
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-02-03
• Publisher: Tarcher

Summary

The world of nursing as seen through the prism of eight nurses' lives over the course of a year working at the Regional Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Nursing is one of the fastest-growing occupations in the United States. What draws people to this most challenging of professions? And what is it like to return, day after day, to a place where lives hang in the balance? In Nursing America, Sandy Balfour describes the daily joy and discouragement, hope and despair experienced by eight nurses, each from one of the different specialty units of an inner-city hospital. "Nobody ever came to the hospital to see a nurse," points out one of the nurses in this book. Yet it is often the nurses whom the patients never forget. From the painstaking job of providing people with care and compassion to the intricate doctor-nurse relationships, the nursing profession brings new meaning to the term "people skills." Balfour addresses the current climate in hospitals, in which funding is becoming more and more scarce, and its effects on nursing. In this refreshingly candid and intriguing account, Balfour takes readers to the front lines of nursing to reveal the men and women who work in this fascinating field.

Author Biography

Sandy Balfour is an award-winning television journalist who has written, produced, and directed programs for CNN, the Discovery Channel, Disney, and the BBC.

Table of Contents

PART 1 FALL
Chapter 1. All Messed Up in Memphis	3	(7)
Chapter 2. One Choice in Three	10	(6)
Chapter 3. Done Treated Right	16	(5)
Chapter 4. Older than Time	21	(8)
Chapter 5. Sister Soldier	29	(10)
PART 2 WINTER
Chapter 6. On Life Being Over	39	(11)
Chapter 7. Cover Your Back	50	(6)
Chapter 8. All This Is Temporary	56	(6)
Chapter 9. Burn	62	(5)
Chapter 10. Scab Pickers	67	(11)
Chapter 11. The Temple of Deliverance	78	(9)
PART 3 SPRING
Chapter 12. Dirty Southern	87	(7)
Chapter 13. Doing What You Can	94	(11)
Chapter 14. A Child Is Born	105	(6)
Chapter 15. A Process of Weaning	111	(9)
Chapter 16. Talking Budgets	120	(5)
Chapter 17. The Newborn Center	125	(8)
Chapter 18. Life Goes On	133	(14)
PART 4 SUMMER
Chapter 19. Morphine and Jelly Babies	147	(11)
Chapter 20. Calling Elvis	158	(9)
Chapter 21. Self-Inflicted Wounds	167	(9)
Chapter 22. Money Matters	176	(7)
Chapter 23. American as Apple Pie	183	(10)
Chapter 24. Slow Train Coming	193	(7)
Chapter 25. Saying Good-bye	200	(8)
A Kind of Crisis	208	(5)
Acknowledgments	213