Along her 30 year nursing career path, Kathy Mercurio has been privileged to learn some of life's most important lessons. Often, the "teachers" were unsuspecting, unintentional educators in the form of patients, their family members and friends. Join Kathy in learning and sharing some light moments, dark days and hard-learned lessons in the pages of this intimate look at the Art of Nursing and the Life's Lessons that are imparted.
Along her 30 year nursing career path, Kathy Mercurio has been privileged to learn some of life's most important lessons. Often, the "teachers" were unsuspecting, unintentional educators in the form of patients, their family members and friends. Join Kathy in learning and sharing some light moments, dark days and hard-learned lessons in the pages of this intimate look at the Art of Nursing and the Life's Lessons that are imparted.
What does it mean to be prepared for the last part of our lives?One of the many lessons author and end-of-life nurse coach Janet Booth learned at the bedside of dying people is how painful it is to come unprepared to the end of life, whether it is our own or that of our loved ones. Much of the suffering we experience seems to come from our unfamiliarity with the journey at end of life and our not knowing how to prepare for it. So there is a need for a different kind of conversation about serious illness and dying in our country. Nurses are trusted professionals who are present with people through all of life's transitions. How might they take more leadership in these conversations?The purpose of this handbook is to provide nurses, coaches, and other health care professionals with opportunities for reflection and inspiration in their work. As nurses and health care professionals, many of us have seen firsthand that the process of navigating serious illness and death within our complex health care system is often confusing, isolating, crisis-driven, and dis-heartening.What outcomes might be possible if instead: * we reimagined the end of life as a vital, purposeful stage of human development? * practices of healing - forgiveness, gratitude, and letting go - became essential parts of our care plans? * wisdom instead of fear informed our challenging decision points? * we prepared for death in order to live more fully the time that we have? * the hard work of caregiving was sustainable and meaningful for both family and professional caregivers?In this book you will find fresh ideas, tools, and reflective practices that encourage you to explore your personal beliefs and values about aging, advanced illness, and dying. It is intended to inspire you to reimagine the end of life as a vital part of how we become fully human - a time of life that holds value, meaning, and purpose.
Any 21 year old can do this with 30 years experience! Steeped in wisdom from the vantage point of hindsight, this is a candid recounting of life as a nurse. What is it like to know that a little mistake at work could be deadly? From bizarre to humorous to poignant, share in the lessons learned from nursing's greatest teachers, the patients themselves. "I became a nurse by accident," wrote this young, inexperienced nurse, sharing her insecurities with a pad of paper. What began as a career misstep, evolved into a journey that was unexpectedly challenging and fulfilling, at times daunting, and often humbling. Reflecting back over decades of experiences in different settings, one theme emerges. Suffering and pain are immutable. A loving touch, a listening ear, a gentle word - will never go out of date. The need for compassion, in a field swirling with new technology, transcends time. Nursing is replete with tireless women and men who answer the call to serve others, around the clock, every day of the year. It is a sisterhood and brotherhood, bound by a common theme, that the patient comes first - before lunch, before bathroom breaks, before sleep. This is our story of our calling to this art of compassion. While nursing may not be for everybody, Nursing Chose Me is engaging, funny, heartwarming, and an interesting read for all!
As a nurse for nearly fifty years, Keith Cox provided expert care and comfort to countless people facing the unimaginable. With insight and sensitivity, A Caring Life takes us behind the scenes of his remarkable nursing career and the moving stories of hope, determination and loss that underpinned it. Along the way, he shares lessons gained from a career spent confronting mortality, from finding joy in difficult circumstances to understanding that true strength comes in thinking of others and being part of a community. Over the years, Keith has seen dramatic advances in medical treatment, as well as the limits of what medical intervention can achieve - which is why compassion and grace are his guiding principles, both on the ward and in his own life. A Caring Life is the inspirational story of a nursing trailblazer who has learnt firsthand the value of human connection and kindness, in challenging times and in everyday life - and the satisfaction of living a life of service and meaning. Praise for A Caring Life 'A Caring Life is an appropriate testimony to one of this country's silent heroes. His empathy, knowledge and gentle grace have become hallmarks in the compassionate treatment and care of cancer patients.' - Anthony Warlow AM 'A firsthand account of those dealing with cancer is presented here as a reminder to us that at times of despair, we are not alone.' - Max Cullen 'Keith Cox is the angel you'd hope to have by your bedside when it matters most, that humane and reassuring presence when illness turns the world upside down.' - Matthew Condon
Offering life- and career-changing moments in nurses’ lives, the 80 true stories in Reflections on Nursing reveal nursing at its most demanding and fulfilling. Written mainly by nurses offering care at home, hospital, or hospice, these first-person stories convey the professional burdens, personal growth, and inner realizations found in the course of patient care. Whether you are a new or experienced practitioner, or just fascinated by nursing care in action, these inspiring true stories show nursing as both professional and life experience, and often, as an inspired journey. Experience the challenges and hard-earned wisdom of these real-life nursing moments: · Written by or about nurses of all experience levels and in numerous care settings, including stories about memorable nurses written by patients, family members, and doctors · Dive into these engrossing short stories, and go on a journey with: the nurse who inspires dignity and strength in a young soldier who is losing his wife the young nurse who stands up to a bullying preceptor the nurse who realizes her best friend, a fellow nurse, is stealing drugs from their unit the nurse struggling to give adequate care to seven patients at once on an understaffed unit the retired doctor who recalls the nurse who saved him, as a young intern, from mishandling a crucial situation with a dying patient the nurse who takes on an angry patient with a challenging case, to offer special help and encouragement nurses who become a patient The nurse/administrator who pushes hard for administrative decisions that will support nurses and improve patient care the inspiring patients who help nurses remember why they became a nurse
This “comforting…thoughtful” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a “roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance” (The Boston Globe). “A common sense path to define what a ‘good’ death looks like” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This “empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear” (Shelf Awareness).
Catherine Driver writes with profound honesty about her journey as a nurse. Read about her transformation from a shy naive student, doubting her ability, to a confident expert nurse pushing the boundaries. Intense, raw, and gripping, her stories with patients, relatives and staff transport us to the health care world through the eyes of an ordinary nurse, experiencing extraordinary things. From caring for patients in large city hospitals to retrieving trauma victims from the jungles of Papua New Guinea, Catherine shares her reflections on powerful and, sometimes painful, lessons learned. Her stories remind us that every person and situation we encounter can provide us with rich learning opportunities if we are prepared to remain open, be able to see and overcome our own biases, and to challenge the status quo. It's not just what you do but how you do it that matters. This book is essential reading for anyone curious about what nurses do, for those considering nursing as a career, for nurses beginning their professional pathway and wondering about future possibilities, and for more experienced nurses who have collectively been on a journey of learning through practice. Laurie Grealish RN PhD FCNA, Associate Professor in Subacute and Aged Nursing, conjoint appointment between Griffith University and Gold Coast Health
Now in paperback—this acclaimed book from Norman Rosenthal, the New York Times–bestselling author and research psychiatrist, shows how life’s disappointments and difficulties provide us with the lessons we need to become happier and more resilient human beings. Winner of the 2014 Nautilus Award represents “Better Books for a Better World”—the Silver Award in the category of Heroic Journeys. Adversity is an irreducible fact of life. Although we can and should learn from all experiences, both positive and negative, bestselling author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, believes that adversity is by far the best teacher most of us will ever encounter. Whether the adversity one experiences is the result of poor decision-making, a desire to test one’s mettle, or plain bad luck, Rosenthal believes life’s most important lessons—from the value of family to the importance of occasionally cutting corners—can be best learned from it. Running counter to society’s current prevailing message that “excellence” must always be aspired to, and failure or mistakes of any sort are to be avoided at all costs, Rosenthal shows that engaging with our own failures and defeats is one of the only ways we are able to live authentic and meaningful lives, and that each different type of adversity carries its own challenges and has the potential to yield its own form of wisdom. Using stories from his own life—including his childhood in apartheid-era South Africa, his years after suffering a violent attack from a stranger, and his career as a psychiatrist—as well as case studies and discussions with well-known figures like Viktor Frankl and David Lynch, Rosenthal shows that true innovation, emotional resilience, wisdom, and dignity can only come from confronting and understanding the adversity we have experienced. Even when life is hardest, there are meanings to be found, riches to be harvested, and gifts that can last a lifetime. Rosenthal illustrates his message through a series of compact, memorable chapters, each one drawn from episodes in the lives of his patients, colleagues, or himself, and concluded with a take-away maxim on the lesson learned.
