Main description:

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.

Contents:

IntroductionPart 1: Set Up to Lose, but Playing to WinA Covert Operation - Kathleen BartholomewSaving Patients from Dr. Death - Toni HoffmanA Lesson for the Principal - Kathy HubkaThe Delicate Discharge - Ruth JohnsonNo Patience for Poison - Brenda CarleMr. CEO, Will You Marry Me? - Candice OwleyIntolerable Behavior - Eleanor GeldardOne Is One Too Many - Thomas SmithA Comfortable Cover Up - Jenny KendallStacking the Cards in Our Favor - Ro LicataPart 2: We Don't Have to Eat Our YoungMentor Unto Others...- Clola Robinson-BlakeA Dose of Diplomacy - Donna SchroederStanding Up for What You Don't Know - Judy SchaeferBroken Bones and Ice Cream - Edie BrousTreating Transition Shock - Judy Boychuk DuchscherThe Empty-Hands Round - Amaia Saenz de OrmijanaPart 3: Excuse Me, Doctor, You're WrongEye/I Advocacy - Jane BlackAs If the Patient Can Hear You - Clarke DotyDon't Just Add Nurses and Stir - Janet RankinGloves Off - Nancy Marie ValentineThe Overlooked Symptom - Jo StecherHope in the Midst of Tragedy - Connie BardenThe Advantages of Age - Marion PhippsAn Expiration Date for Indignancy - Madeline SpiersWhat Hospice Is For - Jean ChaissonA Real Pain - Paola ScamperlePart 4: Not Part of the Job DescriptionI'll Call in Sick If I Have To - Barbara EggerDoing the Heavy Lifting - Martha BakerAttacked by a Patient, Abandoned by My Hospital - Charlene L. RichardsonThe Samurai Sword - Anne DuffyOnly When It's Safe - Bernie GerardThe Red Shirts Are Coming - Mary Crabtree TongesNot Saints or Sisters - Belinda MoriesonPart 5 When One Advocate Can Make a DifferencePutting Lymphedema on the Map - Saskia R. J. ThiadensAn Inconvenient Nurse - Faith HensonA Safe Delivery from Domestic Abuse - Kristin StevensTo Do the Unthinkable - Barry L. AdamsThe Only Nurse for Miles Around - Dagbjoert BjarnadottirMore Than Boo-boos and Band-Aids - Judy StewartFirst Responders in the AIDS Epidemic - Richard S. FerriPart 6: Choking on Sugar and Spice: Challenging Nurses' Public ImageSilenced during the SARS Epidemic - Doris GrinspunIn the Halls of Academe - Claire M. FaginR-E-S-P-E-C-T - Lisa FitzpatrickReal Nurses Don't Wear Wings - Victoria L. RichThe Lady with a Loud Voice - Jeanne BynerTaking on the Terminator - Vicki BermudezDefending the Nursing Profession over Dinner - Elizabeth KozubRemaking the Power Nurse - Pierre-Andre WagnerHealth Policy from Nurses' Point of View - Yuko KanamoriMaybe We Should Be Bragging - Gudrun AdalsteinsdottirFinessing the Chairman of the Board - Carol BlountCalled to Duty at 30,000 Feet - Ann ConversoPart 7: Applied ResearchNurse PI on a Clinical Trial - Kathleen DracupThe Need for Nurse Evaluators - Teresa Moreno-CasbasResearch and Nursing-Home Reform - Charlene HarringtonHow Nurses Make It Work - Kathryn Lothschuetz MontgomeryTeamwork through Research - Lena SharpKeep Asking Questions - Sean ClarkeNo More Martyrs - fane LipscombTaking On Conventional Wisdom - Thora B. HafsteinsdottirPart 8: Sticking TogetherWinning Recognition of Nursing Expertise - Edie BrousA Union Just for Nurses - Massimo RibettoWe Rained on Their Parade - Judy Sheridan-GonzalezProtesting on the Red Carpet - Kelly DiGiacomoSaving the Carney - Penny ConnollyPart 9: Still FightingThe Male Midwife - Gregg TruemanFighting for Our Vets - Edmond O'LearyWe Are the Experts - Karen HigginsA Collective Voice - Diane SosneWe Will Not Be Silenced - Carol YoungsonStanding By One Patient - Faith Simon