Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses

by Cortney & Judy Davis & Schaefer (Editor), Cortney & Judy Davis & Schaefer (Editor)

In Intensive More Poetry and Prose by Nurses , sixty-five nurses from places as diverse as California and Alaska, South America and Europe, tell us in tough, revealing poems and prose what it's like to be on the front lines of health care. These nurses, both men and women, speak to us from intensive care units and operating rooms, from patients' homes and storefront clinics, from hospitals with the latest technology to small clinics in the steamy jungles of Nicaragua. They tell us what it's like to walk in their shoes and see the drama of illness and healing unfold before their eyes.

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2003

Reviews

[Stephen Kiernan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book enables the reader to walk a mile in another person's shoes: a nurse's shoes.
In one compelling story and poem after another -- written by nurses of every stripe -- we are brought into the presence of human vulnerability, the collision between individualism and medical necessity, the fragily of life and the dedication of those working to preserve and extend it.
Physicians come and examine and go, but nurses are there at the bedside hour upon hour. This anthology is a moving and masterful revelation of how that work actually feels.

[Kate McGinnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read poems from this book all the time, but the one I keep the closest to me is "A Moment in the History of Nursing" by Frances Araujo.

. . ."I believe in certain things: that we live each other's lives, and that we belong to one another. And I believe that all human beings, given enough time, will move toward love. I believe that every life, no matter how brief or how long or how complicated it looks on the outside, is, in its own way, perfect.". ..