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The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story
Christie Watson was a nurse for twenty years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astonishing account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion and kindness.
We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient’s agonising heart-lung transplant, and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.
In our most extreme moments, when life is lived most intensely, Christie is with us. She is a guide, mentor and friend. And in these dark days of division and isolationism, she encourages us all to stretch out a hand.
We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient’s agonising heart-lung transplant, and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.
In our most extreme moments, when life is lived most intensely, Christie is with us. She is a guide, mentor and friend. And in these dark days of division and isolationism, she encourages us all to stretch out a hand.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published May 3, 2018
964 people are currently reading
19115 people want to read
About the author
Christie Watson
18 books413 followersChristie Watson is a professor of medical humanities at UEA, and worked as an NHS nurse for over twenty years. She has written six books, including her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, which won the Costa First Novel Award, and the memoir, The Language of Kindness, which was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Christie is a contributor to the Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph, and TEDx, and her work has been translated into twenty-three languages and adapted for theatre. Moral Injuries, her latest novel, is publishing March 14th (UK) and June (US).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,144 reviews
May 20, 2019
The book is, in a sense, a philosophical meditation on what nursing is. This makes it completely different from other books on nursing although, as with other books, the stories of patients are there. The stories, which are holistic rather than strictly medical, are interesting and involving, both the patient ant the nurse, the author and sometimes the family.
The structure of the book is quite original. It starts with a little about the authors early life and blips in starting a career.Then it settles down and it's childbirth, newborns that are discussed. Slowly through the progression of life, there are stories of babies, children , teenagers and adults, of diseases and operations and birth defects, dementia, death - not necessarily of old people - and finally the mortuary. It's a clever way of telling a story.
It's not an exciting, ranting, technical or breathless tell-all sort of book. The author's writing is measured and detailed, it's been well-edited, there is no superfluous writing, no 'lyrical' passages, no stories told because they were good stories, everything is to the point. I can appreciate a book put together in this meticulous way for the writing, let alone the very good and enlightening content. Definitely worth reading and quite unique in the medical memoir genre.
The structure of the book is quite original. It starts with a little about the authors early life and blips in starting a career.Then it settles down and it's childbirth, newborns that are discussed. Slowly through the progression of life, there are stories of babies, children , teenagers and adults, of diseases and operations and birth defects, dementia, death - not necessarily of old people - and finally the mortuary. It's a clever way of telling a story.
It's not an exciting, ranting, technical or breathless tell-all sort of book. The author's writing is measured and detailed, it's been well-edited, there is no superfluous writing, no 'lyrical' passages, no stories told because they were good stories, everything is to the point. I can appreciate a book put together in this meticulous way for the writing, let alone the very good and enlightening content. Definitely worth reading and quite unique in the medical memoir genre.
August 29, 2019
If the rating were only about the content of this book, it would be an easy 5 stars- Christie Watson writes about the need for compassion, understanding, and genuine care for each other. She tells of the hardships of modern nursing and the funding deficits that mean both patients and staff are being let down on multiple levels. She lets the reader into the most private of experiences, the illness or loss of a loved one, and shows how good nursing can help people through hard times.
And yet, she is not a natural storyteller. Her writing is stilted and dry, leaving too much room between the stories she relates and the emotions they are supposed to convey, keeping the reader bizarrely distanced. Having recently read This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, it was hard not to make comparisons; this is interesting enough but lacks real impact, whereas that book is full to the brim with human emotion, you felt it in every page, and it resonates with you long after putting the book down. I'd recommend starting there.
ARC via Netgalley
And yet, she is not a natural storyteller. Her writing is stilted and dry, leaving too much room between the stories she relates and the emotions they are supposed to convey, keeping the reader bizarrely distanced. Having recently read This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, it was hard not to make comparisons; this is interesting enough but lacks real impact, whereas that book is full to the brim with human emotion, you felt it in every page, and it resonates with you long after putting the book down. I'd recommend starting there.
ARC via Netgalley
August 3, 2018
Book Reviewed by Nia on www.whisperingstories.com
This is a powerful and beautifully written book, a heartfelt account about the practicalities of nursing and the toll it takes on the people who have chosen the career.
I enjoyed the way this book was laid out, first starting with Watson’s decision to become a nurse and her training – then mapping out nursing chronologically from working in maternity, with young children, in A&E and then with end of life care. She talks about the different personality types and skill sets needed in some of the specialities, which shines a light on why some people work in the departments they do and thrive there.
The unexpected element of this book is how philosophical it is on the nature of kindness, caring for others and the meaning of life and death. It must be difficult to work with very ill children and not wonder about the nature of death, but I think the author words it all perfectly. There’s a lot of short anecdotes about the theory of nursing from various sources and how it fits into the practical side of things, how sometimes the best way to care for your patient is to hold their hand and listen to them talk.
The writing style is very personable and you can really start to understand how nurses are the hearts of hospitals, bringing dignity and kindness to strangers who are at their most vulnerable while all the while having to protect their own hearts from the terrible things they have to witness. I know that I’d never be able to be a nurse for that reason – the energy needed to balance compassion and detachment successfully is immense.
This is a powerful and beautifully written book, a heartfelt account about the practicalities of nursing and the toll it takes on the people who have chosen the career.
I enjoyed the way this book was laid out, first starting with Watson’s decision to become a nurse and her training – then mapping out nursing chronologically from working in maternity, with young children, in A&E and then with end of life care. She talks about the different personality types and skill sets needed in some of the specialities, which shines a light on why some people work in the departments they do and thrive there.
The unexpected element of this book is how philosophical it is on the nature of kindness, caring for others and the meaning of life and death. It must be difficult to work with very ill children and not wonder about the nature of death, but I think the author words it all perfectly. There’s a lot of short anecdotes about the theory of nursing from various sources and how it fits into the practical side of things, how sometimes the best way to care for your patient is to hold their hand and listen to them talk.
The writing style is very personable and you can really start to understand how nurses are the hearts of hospitals, bringing dignity and kindness to strangers who are at their most vulnerable while all the while having to protect their own hearts from the terrible things they have to witness. I know that I’d never be able to be a nurse for that reason – the energy needed to balance compassion and detachment successfully is immense.
April 27, 2018
This advance reader copy was provided by Crown Publishing via NetGalley.
This book was written by a woman who became a nurse 20 years ago in the United Kingdom under the auspices of the NHS or National Health Service. Working in the healthcare profession is about as "real" as you can get, so as a lover of non-fiction/biographies, I was immediately drawn into this very frank memoir.
Nurse/author Christie Watson takes us along on her very first day in training, walking through the hospital hallways and corridors describing everything she sees and hears. She trains in various tracks of nursing such as psychiatry, surgical, obstetrics, pediatric ICU, etc. She has many memories and stories to share, laden with a wide spectrum of emotions.
Some of the major takeaways I'm left with are the following:
Just being KIND is a HUGE part of nursing a patient; being kind and HELPING. Hence, the title of this memoir, "The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story."
Kindness and helping manifest themselves in many positive ways. One illustrative example in the book is of an elderly helpless patient who moves her bowels all over herself and the bed. Christie and the other nurses do not show on their faces or in their manner that they are repulsed by the stench or the situation. Instead, they calmly and cheerfully wash and redress this patient. Once cleaned up, the patient is so genuinely grateful and soothed by this compassionate care.
Another example of kindness is how the nurses prepare a young female child who has drowned in her grandparents' pool for viewing by the family. They use hot water to wash the little girl so that she does not feel so cold to the touch. As a final mark of compassion, Christie uses bubble gum flavored toothpaste in the child's drawer to brush the girl's teeth, then closes her eyes. For other children who have passed, the nurses employed other acts of kindness by cutting a lock of hair to save for the parents, and even making a golden footprint as a memento.
Over here in the United States nurses are paid well, but Christie's account of working under the government-controlled socialized medicine in England tells another story. She struggles to make ends meet, feels as though her profession is under appreciated, and speaks of under-staffed nursing stations.
This was a fascinating, often riveting, and quite touching account of a young woman's 20-year history working in the nursing profession.
This book was written by a woman who became a nurse 20 years ago in the United Kingdom under the auspices of the NHS or National Health Service. Working in the healthcare profession is about as "real" as you can get, so as a lover of non-fiction/biographies, I was immediately drawn into this very frank memoir.
Nurse/author Christie Watson takes us along on her very first day in training, walking through the hospital hallways and corridors describing everything she sees and hears. She trains in various tracks of nursing such as psychiatry, surgical, obstetrics, pediatric ICU, etc. She has many memories and stories to share, laden with a wide spectrum of emotions.
Some of the major takeaways I'm left with are the following:
Just being KIND is a HUGE part of nursing a patient; being kind and HELPING. Hence, the title of this memoir, "The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story."
Kindness and helping manifest themselves in many positive ways. One illustrative example in the book is of an elderly helpless patient who moves her bowels all over herself and the bed. Christie and the other nurses do not show on their faces or in their manner that they are repulsed by the stench or the situation. Instead, they calmly and cheerfully wash and redress this patient. Once cleaned up, the patient is so genuinely grateful and soothed by this compassionate care.
Another example of kindness is how the nurses prepare a young female child who has drowned in her grandparents' pool for viewing by the family. They use hot water to wash the little girl so that she does not feel so cold to the touch. As a final mark of compassion, Christie uses bubble gum flavored toothpaste in the child's drawer to brush the girl's teeth, then closes her eyes. For other children who have passed, the nurses employed other acts of kindness by cutting a lock of hair to save for the parents, and even making a golden footprint as a memento.
Over here in the United States nurses are paid well, but Christie's account of working under the government-controlled socialized medicine in England tells another story. She struggles to make ends meet, feels as though her profession is under appreciated, and speaks of under-staffed nursing stations.
This was a fascinating, often riveting, and quite touching account of a young woman's 20-year history working in the nursing profession.
Read
August 27, 2019Christie Watson was a nurse in the British National Health Service for twenty years starting at the age of seventeen after a restless time of odd jobs, reading philosophy and awkward love affairs. She worked in several nursing specialisms during her career and each chapter focuses on one specialism, the chapters are arranged chronologically apart from the first one which describes an incident in her career as a resuscitation nurse at St.Thomas' hospital in London (on the south bank of the Thames, partly opposite the houses of Parliament) she expands from specific experiences either as a mental health nurse or specialist in intensive paediatric care, midwifery, or surgery to make general points about society and the nature of nursing drawing attention to the worldwide history of nursing from 3rd century BC Sri Lanka via 8th century AD Baghdad to Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole in the nineteenth century .
Of course after a while i started to wonder to myself - yeah, yeah, yeah, Missus, how come if nursing is so great and such an important part of the patient' recovery, and if the simple exercise of cleanliness and kindness is so important and crucial that you are no longer a nurse then? Something didn't quite add up until the last three or four chapters then it all became clear, I cried each chapter then - if you are reading on an electronic device please check it is thoroughly water proof first. Her father dies with patient dignity of cancer while she watches another nurse assist him to a quiet end, she finds she has compassion fatigue, is burnt out - her marriage breaks down and she is juggling work and children. And she has a second novel ready for publication.
I saw then that this book, dedicated to nurses, is a fond farewell to her profession and a settling of debts, thanking in a literary way all those she worked with, learnt from, and laughed with.
It is a fascinating account and very easy to read, I did not wolf it down before breakfast, it happened to end up as afternoon reading, but it was smooth and easy to consume. I thought that I might describe as a mirror to modern Britain: poverty, mental ill health, domestic abuse, chronic stress (alcohol and drugs to escape that among medical professionals as well as the public) but then I recalled the story of a man who travelled regularly on an underground train on a certain line who had a conversation with a Magistrate. 'Oh I would never travel on that line' she said 'people are forever in my court up on charges of assault that took place on that line', 'I've travelled that route for years and never seen any trouble' answered the man and of course they can both be right, as a rule you end up in hospital because something has gone wrong, and once things go wrong they can do so in spectacular and complex ways.
Of course after a while i started to wonder to myself - yeah, yeah, yeah, Missus, how come if nursing is so great and such an important part of the patient' recovery, and if the simple exercise of cleanliness and kindness is so important and crucial that you are no longer a nurse then? Something didn't quite add up until the last three or four chapters then it all became clear, I cried each chapter then - if you are reading on an electronic device please check it is thoroughly water proof first. Her father dies with patient dignity of cancer while she watches another nurse assist him to a quiet end, she finds she has compassion fatigue, is burnt out - her marriage breaks down and she is juggling work and children. And she has a second novel ready for publication.
I saw then that this book, dedicated to nurses, is a fond farewell to her profession and a settling of debts, thanking in a literary way all those she worked with, learnt from, and laughed with.
It is a fascinating account and very easy to read, I did not wolf it down before breakfast, it happened to end up as afternoon reading, but it was smooth and easy to consume. I thought that I might describe as a mirror to modern Britain: poverty, mental ill health, domestic abuse, chronic stress (alcohol and drugs to escape that among medical professionals as well as the public) but then I recalled the story of a man who travelled regularly on an underground train on a certain line who had a conversation with a Magistrate. 'Oh I would never travel on that line' she said 'people are forever in my court up on charges of assault that took place on that line', 'I've travelled that route for years and never seen any trouble' answered the man and of course they can both be right, as a rule you end up in hospital because something has gone wrong, and once things go wrong they can do so in spectacular and complex ways.
February 7, 2019
This book was terrifying. Terrifying in the sense that it shows just how much nurses do, and how they are the backbone of the NHS, and that, puts some of us to shame, to really sit and think just how much they are undervalued by many, in our society today. I have grown up around neurology books and the BNF, due to having a Mother that dedicated her life to nursing, in particular neurology, and she worked her way up, until she reached the top, and became the ward sister. With that, came drastic changes to her job, and alongside that, a lot more hours, and stress. I know she loved her work, and she always put her all into it, but over the years, as mentioned by Watson in this book, the NHS is becoming increasingly strained. Targets are not being met, there's not enough staffing available, not enough beds, and in the end, it isn't just the patients that suffer, it is also the nurses, too. They don't want this. How can a place that is made for people to recover in when they are ill, and at their most vulnerable, be any comfort and help for the patient, when it is evident that the NHS is struggling? I have worked at the heart of the care industry, in particular, with elderly individuals suffering from mental health conditions. Yes, it was understaffed, yes, I was underpaid, and yes, there wasn't enough done for the patients I cared for, again, due to funding. But, I'll always say this, nurses really do make the difference to someone's life.
With numerous trips to the hospital during my 33 years young life, I have encountered some incredible individuals within the NHS, that go above and beyond what is expected of them. I remember one lady in particular, that had the painful and difficult task of calming me down before I had to undergo an endoscopy. This individual stayed with me, reassured me and really, just had a lovely conversation with me to put my mind at ease. It may seem trivial, but I haven't forgotten that person.
Nursing is so much more than just physical support and someone that administers your medication. As Watson points out in here, Nurses aid the emotional well-being of patients too. I'm not talking about giving someone a bed bath or changing an incontinence pad, I'm talking good, solid conversation. A five minute chat with an individual that is lonely, can make the difference to them having a good or bad day. None of us want to be sick, but being sick is made just that bit more tolerable, knowing that there are nurses there, ready to help.
Although Watson doesn't mention the incredible strain that the NHS is under, and she doesn't make a point of telling us that each day isn't all sunshine and flowers, anyone that has been involved in nursing, will know exactly what I mean. I think being there for a patient and their family, when the patient is at their most vulnerable, does take an incredible amount of kindness, and not everybody could do it.
I admit, I found when Watson was describing her time working on the ward that cared for very sick children, with a variety of around the clock needs, it frightened me. I cried, and I had to shut the book for a few minutes, in order to take in what I'd just read. It really does take a caring and compassionate person to become a nurse, and Watson has laid in down for us all, in black and white, just how it is, and what an impact you can make to someone's life, just by being one. Thank you for sharing your story, Christie Watson.
With numerous trips to the hospital during my 33 years young life, I have encountered some incredible individuals within the NHS, that go above and beyond what is expected of them. I remember one lady in particular, that had the painful and difficult task of calming me down before I had to undergo an endoscopy. This individual stayed with me, reassured me and really, just had a lovely conversation with me to put my mind at ease. It may seem trivial, but I haven't forgotten that person.
Nursing is so much more than just physical support and someone that administers your medication. As Watson points out in here, Nurses aid the emotional well-being of patients too. I'm not talking about giving someone a bed bath or changing an incontinence pad, I'm talking good, solid conversation. A five minute chat with an individual that is lonely, can make the difference to them having a good or bad day. None of us want to be sick, but being sick is made just that bit more tolerable, knowing that there are nurses there, ready to help.
Although Watson doesn't mention the incredible strain that the NHS is under, and she doesn't make a point of telling us that each day isn't all sunshine and flowers, anyone that has been involved in nursing, will know exactly what I mean. I think being there for a patient and their family, when the patient is at their most vulnerable, does take an incredible amount of kindness, and not everybody could do it.
I admit, I found when Watson was describing her time working on the ward that cared for very sick children, with a variety of around the clock needs, it frightened me. I cried, and I had to shut the book for a few minutes, in order to take in what I'd just read. It really does take a caring and compassionate person to become a nurse, and Watson has laid in down for us all, in black and white, just how it is, and what an impact you can make to someone's life, just by being one. Thank you for sharing your story, Christie Watson.
April 30, 2018
Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful book, she shares its secrets.
Christie Watson worked for the NHS for twenty years. She takes us on her journey from her very first day in training, walking along the hospital corridors, telling us what she has seen and heard, and the various wards/departments she has worked on. She writes about the compassion, understanding and the genuine care needed to do the job. This book is a tribute to nurses everywhere who work very hard and are sometimes not appreciated for the work they do. They comfort the dying and devote their lives to the living. They are regularly a abused by the people they are trying to help. This is a true account of nursing at its best and worst times.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing and the author Christie Watson for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Christie Watson worked for the NHS for twenty years. She takes us on her journey from her very first day in training, walking along the hospital corridors, telling us what she has seen and heard, and the various wards/departments she has worked on. She writes about the compassion, understanding and the genuine care needed to do the job. This book is a tribute to nurses everywhere who work very hard and are sometimes not appreciated for the work they do. They comfort the dying and devote their lives to the living. They are regularly a abused by the people they are trying to help. This is a true account of nursing at its best and worst times.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing and the author Christie Watson for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 29, 2019
Another medical memoir, this time told from a nurse rather than doctor’s perspective, this charts the nursing career of Christie Watson as she explores what it is to be a nurse in a struggling NHS.
I found the writing style quite dry in the beginning. There’s a lot of medical jargon that, even as a fellow health professional, I glossed over without truly understanding it and I found it quite hard going. There’s also a distinct like of heart at first. The story’s there, the facts are too, but there’s no real intimacy with the author. I found no emotional connection with her as the narrator as she tended to portray things in a very reserved and guarded manner without really revealing anything about her own personality other than showing she’s compassionate. This changes around the 200 page mark as she begins to regale her time working within PICU with extremely sick children and the mask starts to slip. She portrays an empathy for these patients that is warm and compelling, and she expresses a real concern regarding secondary traumatic stress in nurses after what they see and do on a daily basis in these environments. Some scenes that are described are deeply harrowing and upsetting, and it reminded me of some of the cases that I’ve seen in my own career, and perhaps triggered a thought process about how I cope personally.
I don’t think anyone could say that nursing isn’t a career founded on empathy and compassion. The best nurse can intrinsically know what her patients need before they realise it themselves, and support the family as well as the patient. They’re a sponge, often siphoning bits of trauma and tragedy from their patients, which can lead to their own high risk of depression and stress. Christie Watson manages to explore this topic well, in a highly empathetic manner, that demonstrates just how precarious and precious career good nursing is. It should be cherished, nurtured and prioritised to enable our overly burden NHS to continue. Councilling and talking about what goes on in hospitals just isn’t the done thing, but we need to instill this into our culture if we want to be able to survive the day to day costs of working for the NHS.
I know this is heavily nurse biased, and I knew going in that little would be revealed regarding the roles of the wider health professions, but I was still disappointed at the lack of effort to include these. Specifically, the chapter on oncology, which seemed to gloss over the important role of the therapeutic radiographer entirely. As a dying profession, with recent announcements in the press regarding the closure of another university course in therapeutic radiography, it should be every health care professionals duty to highlight these important careers and this failed to do so.
A slow start, with some very distressing scenes, that unfolds into an emotive story. If there’s one message I took from this it’s that we all need to help each other.
I found the writing style quite dry in the beginning. There’s a lot of medical jargon that, even as a fellow health professional, I glossed over without truly understanding it and I found it quite hard going. There’s also a distinct like of heart at first. The story’s there, the facts are too, but there’s no real intimacy with the author. I found no emotional connection with her as the narrator as she tended to portray things in a very reserved and guarded manner without really revealing anything about her own personality other than showing she’s compassionate. This changes around the 200 page mark as she begins to regale her time working within PICU with extremely sick children and the mask starts to slip. She portrays an empathy for these patients that is warm and compelling, and she expresses a real concern regarding secondary traumatic stress in nurses after what they see and do on a daily basis in these environments. Some scenes that are described are deeply harrowing and upsetting, and it reminded me of some of the cases that I’ve seen in my own career, and perhaps triggered a thought process about how I cope personally.
I don’t think anyone could say that nursing isn’t a career founded on empathy and compassion. The best nurse can intrinsically know what her patients need before they realise it themselves, and support the family as well as the patient. They’re a sponge, often siphoning bits of trauma and tragedy from their patients, which can lead to their own high risk of depression and stress. Christie Watson manages to explore this topic well, in a highly empathetic manner, that demonstrates just how precarious and precious career good nursing is. It should be cherished, nurtured and prioritised to enable our overly burden NHS to continue. Councilling and talking about what goes on in hospitals just isn’t the done thing, but we need to instill this into our culture if we want to be able to survive the day to day costs of working for the NHS.
I know this is heavily nurse biased, and I knew going in that little would be revealed regarding the roles of the wider health professions, but I was still disappointed at the lack of effort to include these. Specifically, the chapter on oncology, which seemed to gloss over the important role of the therapeutic radiographer entirely. As a dying profession, with recent announcements in the press regarding the closure of another university course in therapeutic radiography, it should be every health care professionals duty to highlight these important careers and this failed to do so.
A slow start, with some very distressing scenes, that unfolds into an emotive story. If there’s one message I took from this it’s that we all need to help each other.
May 8, 2018
Based on the 20 years that Watson spent as a nurse in England’s health system before leaving to write full-time, this taps into the widespread feeling that medicine is in desperate need of a good dose of compassion, and will ring true for anyone who spends time in hospitals, whether as a patient or a carer.
Watson presents her book as a roughly chronological tour through the stages of nursing – from pediatrics through to elderly care and the tending to dead bodies – but also through her own career, as she grows from a seventeen-year-old trainee who’s squeamish about blood to a broadly experienced nurse who can hardly be fazed by anything. The first chapter is set up like a tour of the hospital, describing everything she sees and hears as she makes her way up to her office, and the final chapter takes place on her very last day as a nurse, when, faced with a laboring mother in a taxi, she has to deliver the baby right there in the carpark.
In between we hear a series of vivid stories that veer between heartwarming and desperately sad. Watson sees children given a second shot at life. Aaron gets a heart–lung transplant to treat his cystic fibrosis and two-year-old Charlotte bounces back from sepsis – though with prosthetic limbs. But she also sees the ones who won’t get better: Tia, a little girl with a brain tumor; Mahesh, who has muscular dystrophy and relies on a breathing tube; and Jasmin, who is brought to the hospital after a house fire but doesn’t survive for long. She dies in the nurses’ arms as they’re washing the smoke smell out of her hair.
Although Watson specialized in children’s intensive care nursing, she trained in all branches of nursing, so we follow her into the delivery room, mental health ward, and operating theatre. As in Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am, I Am, I Am, we learn about her links to hospitals over the years, starting with her memories of being nursed as a child. She met her former partner, a consultant, at the hospital; they had a child together and adopted another before splitting 12 years later. And as her father was dying of lung cancer, she developed a new appreciation for what nurses do as she observed the dedicated care he received from his hospice nurse. She characterizes nursing as a career that requires great energy, skill and emotional intelligence, “that demands a chunk of your soul on a daily basis,” yet is all too often undervalued.
For me the weakest sections of Watson’s book are the snippets of history about hospitals and the development of the theory and philosophy of nursing. These insertions feel a little awkward and break up the flow of personal disclosure. The same applies to the occasional parenthetical phrase that seems to talk down to the reader, such as “women now receive medical help (IVF) to have their babies” and “obstetricians (doctors) run the show.” Footnotes or endnotes connected to a short glossary might have been a less obtrusive way of adding such explanatory information.
I would particularly recommend this memoir to readers of Kathryn Mannix’s With the End in Mind and Henry Marsh’s Admissions. But with its message of empathy for suffering and vulnerable humanity, it’s a book that anyone and everyone should read. I have it on good authority that there has recently been a copy on the desk of Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary of the UK, which seems like an awfully good start.
A few favorite passages:
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Watson presents her book as a roughly chronological tour through the stages of nursing – from pediatrics through to elderly care and the tending to dead bodies – but also through her own career, as she grows from a seventeen-year-old trainee who’s squeamish about blood to a broadly experienced nurse who can hardly be fazed by anything. The first chapter is set up like a tour of the hospital, describing everything she sees and hears as she makes her way up to her office, and the final chapter takes place on her very last day as a nurse, when, faced with a laboring mother in a taxi, she has to deliver the baby right there in the carpark.
In between we hear a series of vivid stories that veer between heartwarming and desperately sad. Watson sees children given a second shot at life. Aaron gets a heart–lung transplant to treat his cystic fibrosis and two-year-old Charlotte bounces back from sepsis – though with prosthetic limbs. But she also sees the ones who won’t get better: Tia, a little girl with a brain tumor; Mahesh, who has muscular dystrophy and relies on a breathing tube; and Jasmin, who is brought to the hospital after a house fire but doesn’t survive for long. She dies in the nurses’ arms as they’re washing the smoke smell out of her hair.
Although Watson specialized in children’s intensive care nursing, she trained in all branches of nursing, so we follow her into the delivery room, mental health ward, and operating theatre. As in Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am, I Am, I Am, we learn about her links to hospitals over the years, starting with her memories of being nursed as a child. She met her former partner, a consultant, at the hospital; they had a child together and adopted another before splitting 12 years later. And as her father was dying of lung cancer, she developed a new appreciation for what nurses do as she observed the dedicated care he received from his hospice nurse. She characterizes nursing as a career that requires great energy, skill and emotional intelligence, “that demands a chunk of your soul on a daily basis,” yet is all too often undervalued.
For me the weakest sections of Watson’s book are the snippets of history about hospitals and the development of the theory and philosophy of nursing. These insertions feel a little awkward and break up the flow of personal disclosure. The same applies to the occasional parenthetical phrase that seems to talk down to the reader, such as “women now receive medical help (IVF) to have their babies” and “obstetricians (doctors) run the show.” Footnotes or endnotes connected to a short glossary might have been a less obtrusive way of adding such explanatory information.
I would particularly recommend this memoir to readers of Kathryn Mannix’s With the End in Mind and Henry Marsh’s Admissions. But with its message of empathy for suffering and vulnerable humanity, it’s a book that anyone and everyone should read. I have it on good authority that there has recently been a copy on the desk of Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary of the UK, which seems like an awfully good start.
A few favorite passages:
“I wanted to live many lives, to experience different ways of living. I didn’t know then that I would find exactly what I searched for: that both nursing and writing are about stepping into other shoes all the time.”
“What I thought nursing involved when I started: chemistry, biology, physics, pharmacology and anatomy. And what I now know to be the truth of nursing: philosophy, psychology, art, ethics and politics.”
“You get used to all sorts of smells, as a nurse. [An amazingly graphic passage!] But for all that I’ve seen and touched and smelled, and as difficult as it is at the time, there is a patient at the centre of it, afraid and embarrassed. … The horror of our bodies – our humanity, our flesh and blood – is something nurses must bear, lest the patient think too deeply, remember the lack of dignity that makes us all vulnerable. It is our vulnerability that unites us. Promoting dignity in the face of illness is one of the best gifts a nurse can give.”
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
December 4, 2023
Christie Watson in her "The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story," documents a vapid-less nursing career spanning over twenty years. In brief it explains the facets of life when one has chosen nursing as a profession (on a quotidian basis). Watson is an award winning writer---Costa first novel award. She now has found another way to express her empathy by way of teaching a disparate genre from which she was trained. Through her tales, we become fully submerged in care.
"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
---Mark Twain
A twelve year old girl may seem rather insignificant to this story in its entirety, yet when we add a house fire and the need to be housed in a pediatric intensive care unit, then questions start flowing like tears along with them. Poverty, like other social structures, has its characteristic trademarks that accompany it (think Los Angeles County USC Medical Center before closure). The indolence of this reality stains our memory. Our traipse back up to the viewing theater is a long one---perhaps requiring a shower of the mind and a fumigation of sorts.
"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
---Mark Twain
A twelve year old girl may seem rather insignificant to this story in its entirety, yet when we add a house fire and the need to be housed in a pediatric intensive care unit, then questions start flowing like tears along with them. Poverty, like other social structures, has its characteristic trademarks that accompany it (think Los Angeles County USC Medical Center before closure). The indolence of this reality stains our memory. Our traipse back up to the viewing theater is a long one---perhaps requiring a shower of the mind and a fumigation of sorts.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 4, 2020
First of all, thank you to Penguin Random House and the author for sending me an ARC of this wonderful book for review!
This book is authored by Christie Watson, who spent more than 20 years as a nurse in hospitals in and around London. It is a tribute to all nurses who work extremely hard and are sometimes underappreciated. They see people at their worst, and sometimes at their best when a cure is found or a new life is welcomed into the world. They see tragedy, abuse, life, death, and hope. They provide a healing touch when needed and, while the doctors may order the medications, it is the nurses who see that you get them.
Christie Watson seved in various departments during her career, so this book has an interesting variety of medical services included. I found it touching at times, sad at others, and always truthful. I really loved reading this book and didn't want it to end!
This book is authored by Christie Watson, who spent more than 20 years as a nurse in hospitals in and around London. It is a tribute to all nurses who work extremely hard and are sometimes underappreciated. They see people at their worst, and sometimes at their best when a cure is found or a new life is welcomed into the world. They see tragedy, abuse, life, death, and hope. They provide a healing touch when needed and, while the doctors may order the medications, it is the nurses who see that you get them.
Christie Watson seved in various departments during her career, so this book has an interesting variety of medical services included. I found it touching at times, sad at others, and always truthful. I really loved reading this book and didn't want it to end!
August 23, 2019
My review is on my website. www.bookread2day.wordpress.com
One of my favourite chapters was Everything You Can Imagine is Real
There are four distinct training pathways to nursing in the UK, adult nursing, child nursing, mental – health and learning disability nursing. At 17, first day on the wards, Christie has learned about suicide and self harm and dementia care. Christie takes us through the steps of having to care for Derek who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is a serious illness that effects the way a person thinks. There are many more topics that Christie talks about. People and places have been changed in order to protect the privacy of patients and her Colleagues and situations have been merged to further protect identities.
One of my favourite chapters was Everything You Can Imagine is Real
There are four distinct training pathways to nursing in the UK, adult nursing, child nursing, mental – health and learning disability nursing. At 17, first day on the wards, Christie has learned about suicide and self harm and dementia care. Christie takes us through the steps of having to care for Derek who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is a serious illness that effects the way a person thinks. There are many more topics that Christie talks about. People and places have been changed in order to protect the privacy of patients and her Colleagues and situations have been merged to further protect identities.
March 23, 2019
A touching memoir about becoming and being a nurse. A lot is about how undervalued the profession is. It’s quite technical, yet touching and disturbing.
May 8, 2019
I discovered 'The Language of Kindness : A Nurse's Story' by Christie Watson while browsing in the bookshop a few weeks back. I loved the title. Also, though I have seen many memoirs by doctors before, this was the first time I was seeing a memoir by a nurse. So I couldn't resist getting it.
In her memoir, Christie Watson describes how she was an impatient teenager who wasn't sure what she wanted and kept changing her dreams and career goals and life goals every week and how from there she got into nursing which demands a lot of patience and love, attention to detail, and being calm under pressure. She starts the book with how a typical day of a nurse goes and then she talks about how she got into nursing, the different kinds of departments she worked in and how they demanded different kinds of skills, the senior nurses who inspired and mentored her, the young nurses she mentored, the patients she cared for. Watson appears to have worked for a long time with children and a significant part of the book is devoted to her work in the paediatric ward. Watson doesn't shy away from describing the everyday life of the nurse, as it is, and some of the stuff she describes is not for the faint hearted. But Watson describes it in soft, gentle prose which cushions the blow. I cried after nearly every chapter – sometimes out of joy and sometimes because of the heartbreaking things that Watson described. My highlighting pen didn't stop working throughout the book and I highlighted passages starting from the first page to the last. Watson also shares some parts of her life with us which are not related to her work and they are beautifully woven into the narrative. My favourite part out of these is the one in which she talks about her two children, her elder girl who is her birth daughter, and her younger boy, who is her adopted son. When I read these lines at the end of this part – "The two things of which I am proudest in life are my son's kindness and my daughter's love for him. His relationship with his sister is more powerful than anything I have ever witnessed. My son has swallowed all the goodness of the world, and my daughter loves him like the world has never seen love. Parenting them is the greatest privilege of my life." – I couldn't stop crying.
Each chapter starts with a beautiful quote from a famous person and I loved these quotes too - they made me contemplate.
During the course of the book, Watson also delves a little bit into the history of nursing, and describes interesting facts like how the earliest text on nursing was compiled in India in the first century B.C., how the first professional nurse in the history of Islam, Rufaidah bint Sa'ad, from early 7th century was described as an ideal nurse because of her compassion and empathy, how the first hospitals were built by a Srilankan king in the 4th century B.C., how the first hospitals for curing mental illness were established in India during the third century B.C., how a psychiatric hospital was built in Baghdad in 805 A.D. Watson also quotes Florence Nightingale whenever the great lady has an important point to make.
Watson also spends considerable time describing her favourite nurses who inspired her and mentored her - Anna who mentors her, who is an old-school nurse and who is doing her Ph.D while working, in whose team younger nurses stay and work with for years; Tracy who refuses promotion and stays as a lifetime nurse at the same pay grade because she loves taking care of patients and who normally knows more about the medical condition of a patient than what the monitors or reports reveal; Cheryl who nursed Watson's father when he was unwell; Jo, who treats the children under her care with love (This is how Watson describes her - "there is no objectivity in good nursing care. Jo was a brilliant nurse. She understood that to nurse is to love.") These parts of the book are very moving and inspiring and we want to meet these amazing nurses who inspired Watson so much.
Watson also describes the challenges in the nursing profession today (and the medical field in general) and those parts are very insightful and eye-opening to read.
I was sad when the book ended - it was so beautiful. 'The Language of Kindness' is one of my favourite books of the year and I recommend it highly.
I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
"Nursing is a career that demands a chunk of your soul in a daily basis. The emotional energy needed to care for people at their most vulnerable is not limitless and there have been many days when, like most nurses, I have felt spent, devoid of any further capacity to give. I feel lucky that my family and friends are forgiving."
"In another life – along with my many other career aspirations at school – I'd have been a sonographer. But I don't study heartscans, as a nurse. I watch the scans happening on the computer screens, as a writer. The sensory experience of the sound of hearts, the beautiful colours of blue and red unoxygenated and oxygenated blood. The patterns we all have inside us are the most beautiful landscape you can imagine. The movement of our blood flow – we dance inside. I carry with me the sound of the whoosh of the heart scan, as some people carry the sound of a drumbeat from a favourite song. I remember beats. The smaller the baby, the faster and louder the whoosh. Babies gallop, racing to live. A scan of a baby's heart reminds me that survival is instinctive, at birth perhaps more than ever – that will of a newborn, of a species, of survival. We run towards life."
"Anna leaves early. Before going, she hugs me tightly and quickly. There is no emotion in her face, but I feel like holding onto her and never letting me. "Thank you for being my mentor" is all I can manage to say. I want to say much, much more. How I hope some day to be like her. That she has taught me kindness and teamwork and professionalism; how to be hard and soft at the same time. That I will always be grateful to her. Anna has taught me how to be a nurse. After three years of training, my learning to be a nurse really began on my first day after I qualified. But I still have no language to describe what I've learned from Anna. And she's already rushing away."
"The language of nursing is sometimes difficult. A heart cell beats in a Petri dish. A single cell. And another person's heart cell in a Petri dish beats in a different time. Yet if the two touch, they beat in unison. A doctor can explain this with science. But a nurse knows that the language of science is not enough. The nurse in theatre translates 'your husband / wife / child died three times in there, but today was a good day and, with a large amount of electricity and some chest compressions that probably broke a few ribs, we managed to get them back' into something that we can hear. A strange sort of poetry."
"Dying is not always the worst thing. Living a long life and suffering cruelty in old age is the terrible fate that waits for many of us. We will all get sick and die, or we will get old. We can only hope that those caring for us are kind, and that they are empathetic and altruistic."
Have you read Christie Watson's memoir? What do you think about it?
In her memoir, Christie Watson describes how she was an impatient teenager who wasn't sure what she wanted and kept changing her dreams and career goals and life goals every week and how from there she got into nursing which demands a lot of patience and love, attention to detail, and being calm under pressure. She starts the book with how a typical day of a nurse goes and then she talks about how she got into nursing, the different kinds of departments she worked in and how they demanded different kinds of skills, the senior nurses who inspired and mentored her, the young nurses she mentored, the patients she cared for. Watson appears to have worked for a long time with children and a significant part of the book is devoted to her work in the paediatric ward. Watson doesn't shy away from describing the everyday life of the nurse, as it is, and some of the stuff she describes is not for the faint hearted. But Watson describes it in soft, gentle prose which cushions the blow. I cried after nearly every chapter – sometimes out of joy and sometimes because of the heartbreaking things that Watson described. My highlighting pen didn't stop working throughout the book and I highlighted passages starting from the first page to the last. Watson also shares some parts of her life with us which are not related to her work and they are beautifully woven into the narrative. My favourite part out of these is the one in which she talks about her two children, her elder girl who is her birth daughter, and her younger boy, who is her adopted son. When I read these lines at the end of this part – "The two things of which I am proudest in life are my son's kindness and my daughter's love for him. His relationship with his sister is more powerful than anything I have ever witnessed. My son has swallowed all the goodness of the world, and my daughter loves him like the world has never seen love. Parenting them is the greatest privilege of my life." – I couldn't stop crying.
Each chapter starts with a beautiful quote from a famous person and I loved these quotes too - they made me contemplate.
During the course of the book, Watson also delves a little bit into the history of nursing, and describes interesting facts like how the earliest text on nursing was compiled in India in the first century B.C., how the first professional nurse in the history of Islam, Rufaidah bint Sa'ad, from early 7th century was described as an ideal nurse because of her compassion and empathy, how the first hospitals were built by a Srilankan king in the 4th century B.C., how the first hospitals for curing mental illness were established in India during the third century B.C., how a psychiatric hospital was built in Baghdad in 805 A.D. Watson also quotes Florence Nightingale whenever the great lady has an important point to make.
Watson also spends considerable time describing her favourite nurses who inspired her and mentored her - Anna who mentors her, who is an old-school nurse and who is doing her Ph.D while working, in whose team younger nurses stay and work with for years; Tracy who refuses promotion and stays as a lifetime nurse at the same pay grade because she loves taking care of patients and who normally knows more about the medical condition of a patient than what the monitors or reports reveal; Cheryl who nursed Watson's father when he was unwell; Jo, who treats the children under her care with love (This is how Watson describes her - "there is no objectivity in good nursing care. Jo was a brilliant nurse. She understood that to nurse is to love.") These parts of the book are very moving and inspiring and we want to meet these amazing nurses who inspired Watson so much.
Watson also describes the challenges in the nursing profession today (and the medical field in general) and those parts are very insightful and eye-opening to read.
I was sad when the book ended - it was so beautiful. 'The Language of Kindness' is one of my favourite books of the year and I recommend it highly.
I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
"Nursing is a career that demands a chunk of your soul in a daily basis. The emotional energy needed to care for people at their most vulnerable is not limitless and there have been many days when, like most nurses, I have felt spent, devoid of any further capacity to give. I feel lucky that my family and friends are forgiving."
"In another life – along with my many other career aspirations at school – I'd have been a sonographer. But I don't study heartscans, as a nurse. I watch the scans happening on the computer screens, as a writer. The sensory experience of the sound of hearts, the beautiful colours of blue and red unoxygenated and oxygenated blood. The patterns we all have inside us are the most beautiful landscape you can imagine. The movement of our blood flow – we dance inside. I carry with me the sound of the whoosh of the heart scan, as some people carry the sound of a drumbeat from a favourite song. I remember beats. The smaller the baby, the faster and louder the whoosh. Babies gallop, racing to live. A scan of a baby's heart reminds me that survival is instinctive, at birth perhaps more than ever – that will of a newborn, of a species, of survival. We run towards life."
"Anna leaves early. Before going, she hugs me tightly and quickly. There is no emotion in her face, but I feel like holding onto her and never letting me. "Thank you for being my mentor" is all I can manage to say. I want to say much, much more. How I hope some day to be like her. That she has taught me kindness and teamwork and professionalism; how to be hard and soft at the same time. That I will always be grateful to her. Anna has taught me how to be a nurse. After three years of training, my learning to be a nurse really began on my first day after I qualified. But I still have no language to describe what I've learned from Anna. And she's already rushing away."
"The language of nursing is sometimes difficult. A heart cell beats in a Petri dish. A single cell. And another person's heart cell in a Petri dish beats in a different time. Yet if the two touch, they beat in unison. A doctor can explain this with science. But a nurse knows that the language of science is not enough. The nurse in theatre translates 'your husband / wife / child died three times in there, but today was a good day and, with a large amount of electricity and some chest compressions that probably broke a few ribs, we managed to get them back' into something that we can hear. A strange sort of poetry."
"Dying is not always the worst thing. Living a long life and suffering cruelty in old age is the terrible fate that waits for many of us. We will all get sick and die, or we will get old. We can only hope that those caring for us are kind, and that they are empathetic and altruistic."
Have you read Christie Watson's memoir? What do you think about it?
abandoned
September 8, 2018DNF — This was too cutesy for me. Nursing and nurses are already branded as “angels on earth”, like everything that they do, say, and poo are rainbows and unicorns. They’re there to comfort you, to hold your hand, expected to wait on you hand and foot. And I say that as a member of the profession.
I’ve had enough of that, to be honest. After reading Adam Kay’s “This Is Going To Hurt”, I guess I was expecting something tongue-in-cheek like that, from a nurse’s point of view. You won’t get that from this book.
Writing-wise, I was getting deja vu while reading because (numerous) parts feel like something I would’ve read in a nursing journal. The thought, “am I being given an academic lecture?” crossed my mind more than once.
It may not just be for me. I personally found it too serious, too much like an advertisement of what people already think what nurses are like. It doesn’t give justice to the variety of personalities I have met and worked with, how we all deal with the everyday challenges in and out of work, how we cope with the pressures. This book shows a shiny and pretty version of nursing.
I’ve had enough of that, to be honest. After reading Adam Kay’s “This Is Going To Hurt”, I guess I was expecting something tongue-in-cheek like that, from a nurse’s point of view. You won’t get that from this book.
Writing-wise, I was getting deja vu while reading because (numerous) parts feel like something I would’ve read in a nursing journal. The thought, “am I being given an academic lecture?” crossed my mind more than once.
It may not just be for me. I personally found it too serious, too much like an advertisement of what people already think what nurses are like. It doesn’t give justice to the variety of personalities I have met and worked with, how we all deal with the everyday challenges in and out of work, how we cope with the pressures. This book shows a shiny and pretty version of nursing.
May 6, 2018
What a truly inspirational story this is as Christie Watson literally took me by the hand and walked me through twenty years of her nursing career, sharing some of the most intimate moments where she, her patients and their families were at their most vulnerable. She made me laugh and cry with a raw honesty where she held nothing back warts and all.
Going into nursing was not a calling for her but more a career that she stumbled on through circumstances. This journey took me through A & E to specialised nursing and everything in between, the politics and lack of funding to the cogs of the real decision makers of patient care. As I read each page this hidden world that we all take for granted unfolded.
These were real people’s lives, real events and no retakes. The stories of courageous children and how every person that works in the hospital and comes in contact with them are affected when nothing can be done except make end of life as pain-free as possible and not frightening but it doesn’t stop there for many. Especially with the long-term illness and palliative care.
Very little of her personal life is in the book with the exception of her family being on the receiving end of nursing care when her father was ill. It was really special that she shared that time and although she was capable of doing the nursing role it gave her father dignity because another nurse took over the intimate care and someone her father to open up to honestly. At that time Christie really did need to be simply his daughter. It was very touching.
It never is just about the patient either, there is a story of a little girl being brought in after a house fire and what the nurses did I will never forget. This is a reality check. I really wish that everyone would read this book. It will waken all of your senses, the smells and the terrible things they see but also your emotions, a good day is when everyone survives. It really does hit home about these unsung heroes that we all take for granted. Superb!
I wish to thank Vintage for inviting me to read this book via NetGalley which I have reviewed honestly.
Going into nursing was not a calling for her but more a career that she stumbled on through circumstances. This journey took me through A & E to specialised nursing and everything in between, the politics and lack of funding to the cogs of the real decision makers of patient care. As I read each page this hidden world that we all take for granted unfolded.
These were real people’s lives, real events and no retakes. The stories of courageous children and how every person that works in the hospital and comes in contact with them are affected when nothing can be done except make end of life as pain-free as possible and not frightening but it doesn’t stop there for many. Especially with the long-term illness and palliative care.
Very little of her personal life is in the book with the exception of her family being on the receiving end of nursing care when her father was ill. It was really special that she shared that time and although she was capable of doing the nursing role it gave her father dignity because another nurse took over the intimate care and someone her father to open up to honestly. At that time Christie really did need to be simply his daughter. It was very touching.
It never is just about the patient either, there is a story of a little girl being brought in after a house fire and what the nurses did I will never forget. This is a reality check. I really wish that everyone would read this book. It will waken all of your senses, the smells and the terrible things they see but also your emotions, a good day is when everyone survives. It really does hit home about these unsung heroes that we all take for granted. Superb!
I wish to thank Vintage for inviting me to read this book via NetGalley which I have reviewed honestly.
June 11, 2018
Christie Watson is a nurse in the UK. This is her memoir. She shares stories about her nursing training, and about her experiences in various wards / units of the hospital. There was something about her writing style that I didn’t particularly like. It’s not that is an odd or unusual style, but I felt that her stories became a bit tangential at times and then would return to the main story without warning, but which point I had forgotten about the purpose of the main story!
July 4, 2018
Review soon.
May 8, 2019
A touching and illustrative memoir by nurse turned fictional author Christie Watson. As an RGN myself, books like this always interest me and I like to read about how other nurses adapt to different specialities and the ever increasing workload.
The story flits from her early training days right up until her last shift, so a lot of time is covered. The author begins nursing in mental health before working in paediatric intensive care and finally, as a resuscitation officer. She earnestly describes the work and challenges that come with each sector and there is a little history about the history of nursing peppered throughout the book, which I found intriguing.
This is one of the better nursing memoirs I have read; readers of This Is Going To Hurt will surely enjoy it too.
The story flits from her early training days right up until her last shift, so a lot of time is covered. The author begins nursing in mental health before working in paediatric intensive care and finally, as a resuscitation officer. She earnestly describes the work and challenges that come with each sector and there is a little history about the history of nursing peppered throughout the book, which I found intriguing.
This is one of the better nursing memoirs I have read; readers of This Is Going To Hurt will surely enjoy it too.
April 16, 2018
I have always loved books about Drs/Nurses/Hospitals, and was very excited to read this one. It is a beautiful book, a look into the daily life of a nurse. It is a fast, interesting read, some parts actually made me cry. The author was a nurse in the UK, so I found it fascinating to read the differences between the health care system there, and here in the US. Some of the stories in the book, I wish there had been a little more detail, certain patients jumped out at me more than others. But all in all, a great book. I won this in a Goodreads giveaway, my opinions are my own.
February 12, 2019
A wonderful book. So many heartbreaking stories, told with such love and kindness. You feel grateful after reading this, we have so much to thank the nurses for.
June 25, 2020
enjoyed this memoir of a nurse and her experiences through out her NHS career
June 10, 2025
All of my inter-dialogue about the weight of bedside nursing was written out in this book. This was the nursing therapy I needed! So so good.
June 22, 2018
I'm not sure I can be completely fair reviewing this book - a section early on made me mad and ended up tainting it for me. I'll get to that in a minute.
But first, let me say that this is a well-written account of being a nurse in England. Watson is drawn to some of the most emotional parts of the hospital - mental care, emergency, palliative care, neonatal intensive care - so expect heart-wrenching, as well as heart-warming, stories. We watch Watson grow from a nursing student that's duped by psych patients to a knowledgeable practitioner of one of the most noble arts.
She talks how hard the work is - not only long hours and lifting heavy patients, but also the emotional toll. I think most understand nursing isn't easy, but I'm not sure we all appreciate how punishing it can be.
As you can see the writing is good, and Watson's stories are interesting and affecting... but I'm having a hard time getting over the fact that she throws my profession under the bus.
Many of you probably know that I'm a medical interpreter who helps non-Japanese speakers communicate with doctors and staff at a Japanese hospital. It's an important job because without correct and complete information about symptoms, family history, and so many other things it's difficult to arrive at a correct diagnosis and provide adequate care.
Strike one - Watson calls interpreters "translators". It's a distinction many don't know (translators = written word, interpreters = spoken), so I can let that slide. But then there's strike two - she continues and says that in the emergency department they forgo calling qualified interpreters because using family members is faster and easier.
There aren't just arguments - it comes down to professional ethics and morals. It is a health provider's duty to provide the best care, and asking a daughter or brother to relay important, detailed, technical information under stress can go wrong in so many ways. Interpreter codes of ethics state that even professionals shouldn't interpret for friends and family, the conflict is so great. Watson blithely dismissing the right of limited English speakers to have a qualified interpreter, to have access to critical information about their health in a language they understand, makes me see red. Looking at the importance she places on ethics in other parts of the book it becomes galling. Gah.
I admit it, I pretty much glowered at the chapters after that. The writing and stories brought me around again so I can still recommend the book to fans of medical non-fiction, but not as wholeheartedly as I would like.
But first, let me say that this is a well-written account of being a nurse in England. Watson is drawn to some of the most emotional parts of the hospital - mental care, emergency, palliative care, neonatal intensive care - so expect heart-wrenching, as well as heart-warming, stories. We watch Watson grow from a nursing student that's duped by psych patients to a knowledgeable practitioner of one of the most noble arts.
I learn then that nursing is not so much about tasks, but about how in every detail a nurse can provide comfort to a patient and a family. It is a privilege to witness people at the frailest, most significant and most extreme moments of life, and to have the capacity to love complete strangers.
She talks how hard the work is - not only long hours and lifting heavy patients, but also the emotional toll. I think most understand nursing isn't easy, but I'm not sure we all appreciate how punishing it can be.
Compassion fatigue is common when caring for people who have suffered trauma. The nurse repeatedly swallows a fragment of the trauma—like a nurse who is looking after an infectious patient, putting herself at risk of infection. Caring for negative emotions puts her at risk of feeling them, too. And taking in even a small part of tragedy and grief, and loneliness and sadness, on a daily basis over a career is dangerous and it is exhausting.
As you can see the writing is good, and Watson's stories are interesting and affecting... but I'm having a hard time getting over the fact that she throws my profession under the bus.
Many of you probably know that I'm a medical interpreter who helps non-Japanese speakers communicate with doctors and staff at a Japanese hospital. It's an important job because without correct and complete information about symptoms, family history, and so many other things it's difficult to arrive at a correct diagnosis and provide adequate care.
Strike one - Watson calls interpreters "translators". It's a distinction many don't know (translators = written word, interpreters = spoken), so I can let that slide. But then there's strike two - she continues and says that in the emergency department they forgo calling qualified interpreters because using family members is faster and easier.
There are arguments against [interpretation] from non-experts; a suspicion, on the part of the nurses and doctors, that the words are being softened and not translated precisely, but it’s quicker than finding a[n interpreter].
There aren't just arguments - it comes down to professional ethics and morals. It is a health provider's duty to provide the best care, and asking a daughter or brother to relay important, detailed, technical information under stress can go wrong in so many ways. Interpreter codes of ethics state that even professionals shouldn't interpret for friends and family, the conflict is so great. Watson blithely dismissing the right of limited English speakers to have a qualified interpreter, to have access to critical information about their health in a language they understand, makes me see red. Looking at the importance she places on ethics in other parts of the book it becomes galling. Gah.
I admit it, I pretty much glowered at the chapters after that. The writing and stories brought me around again so I can still recommend the book to fans of medical non-fiction, but not as wholeheartedly as I would like.
July 21, 2024
I did not expect to like this book as much as I did! It told such an impacting and important story in just 323 pages. I know a lot of people who are nurses and are involved in the medical field in general, and I've definitely heard my fair share of bad nursing stories so I could really appreciate this book.
It's beautiful in the way that it reminds us, to our core, what nursing is and has always been about. It's a reminder, a wake up call!! You can be so smart and knowledgeable on the ways of medicine, but if you are not kind, if you are not a people person, and if you do not care...do not go into medicine or nursing field!! end of the conversation. Nursing is not just something to pursue on a whim!! This book is a reminder of that. A lot of the claims I read are so true. Especially in these last few years, people care less and less, especially in nursing, in my experience, I see it almost everywhere. And its devestating.
This book is both educational but also simultaneously tells a story of humans, it talks of the history of nursing and some facts of when it originated in many cultures from hundreds to thousands of years ago while also telling the story and experience of the author, Christie Watson who was a nurse herself for 20 years.
It also points out the flaws of the health care system. But don't get me wrong, it shows a lot of experience of kindness and humanity, a little bit of a tear jerker, this one.
It shares these stories of patients and families, granting these dead and dying people with dignity, respect, and reverence. But at the same time, I can really appreciate that it is not so much a story that inspires fear in and of death, but rather simply just the mourning of our loved ones, that they are gone too soon, that the ways in which they left this earth are just not fair. its heartbreaking. This aspect is something I appreciate about this book.
I also thought Watson pointing out the fact that in other cultures, like for example, Africa, the elderly are treated with respect and are seen as wise, they live with their families and are cared for. Not seen as burdens. But especially in Western culture and Europe(at least the UK), they are seen as burdens, or at the very least treated like one. They hardly recieve visitors, which is true, lower paid facilities have wayyy worse quality of care, and the nurses are careless. This is from experience, again, I've worked in 2 elderly facilities. And the author makes a note that we as a society, see aging as a dreadful experience, and has me wondering our socities reckless care of our elders is a projection of our own fears. But it is nonetheless a truth that makes me disappointed in society these days.
It reminds us, above all, that kindness is so so important. "together, our hands will not shake." and "let us rage against the dying of the light."
remember your humanity. remember what makes you human.
It's beautiful in the way that it reminds us, to our core, what nursing is and has always been about. It's a reminder, a wake up call!! You can be so smart and knowledgeable on the ways of medicine, but if you are not kind, if you are not a people person, and if you do not care...do not go into medicine or nursing field!! end of the conversation. Nursing is not just something to pursue on a whim!! This book is a reminder of that. A lot of the claims I read are so true. Especially in these last few years, people care less and less, especially in nursing, in my experience, I see it almost everywhere. And its devestating.
This book is both educational but also simultaneously tells a story of humans, it talks of the history of nursing and some facts of when it originated in many cultures from hundreds to thousands of years ago while also telling the story and experience of the author, Christie Watson who was a nurse herself for 20 years.
It also points out the flaws of the health care system. But don't get me wrong, it shows a lot of experience of kindness and humanity, a little bit of a tear jerker, this one.
It shares these stories of patients and families, granting these dead and dying people with dignity, respect, and reverence. But at the same time, I can really appreciate that it is not so much a story that inspires fear in and of death, but rather simply just the mourning of our loved ones, that they are gone too soon, that the ways in which they left this earth are just not fair. its heartbreaking. This aspect is something I appreciate about this book.
I also thought Watson pointing out the fact that in other cultures, like for example, Africa, the elderly are treated with respect and are seen as wise, they live with their families and are cared for. Not seen as burdens. But especially in Western culture and Europe(at least the UK), they are seen as burdens, or at the very least treated like one. They hardly recieve visitors, which is true, lower paid facilities have wayyy worse quality of care, and the nurses are careless. This is from experience, again, I've worked in 2 elderly facilities. And the author makes a note that we as a society, see aging as a dreadful experience, and has me wondering our socities reckless care of our elders is a projection of our own fears. But it is nonetheless a truth that makes me disappointed in society these days.
It reminds us, above all, that kindness is so so important. "together, our hands will not shake." and "let us rage against the dying of the light."
remember your humanity. remember what makes you human.
February 7, 2023
Reading about the experiences of healthcare professionals on the job never fails to captivate and astound me. While the writing style was not my favourite—feeling at times disjoint or too rushed—the content of the book makes it (in my humblest of opinions) still worth the read.
What this book made me think about in particular is the argument of one effective altruist that becoming the one additional doctor (or another stereotypically “helping people” career) has a lower marginal benefit to the world than say, donating would (since if you don’t become a doctor, some other doctor will treat sick people, but if you don’t donate, there is an absolute less amount of money going towards a particular cause). The Language of Kindness challenges that stance; it’s not only by the physical healing of the patient that you can help them, but by demonstrating empathy and kindness above the call of duty where you can really make a difference as an individual. Of course, this applies to all professions not limited to healthcare! Rather than trying to be remembered as the “best” at what I do, maybe I want to strive to be remembered as the most kind, thoughtful, or just someone people enjoy being around.
What this book made me think about in particular is the argument of one effective altruist that becoming the one additional doctor (or another stereotypically “helping people” career) has a lower marginal benefit to the world than say, donating would (since if you don’t become a doctor, some other doctor will treat sick people, but if you don’t donate, there is an absolute less amount of money going towards a particular cause). The Language of Kindness challenges that stance; it’s not only by the physical healing of the patient that you can help them, but by demonstrating empathy and kindness above the call of duty where you can really make a difference as an individual. Of course, this applies to all professions not limited to healthcare! Rather than trying to be remembered as the “best” at what I do, maybe I want to strive to be remembered as the most kind, thoughtful, or just someone people enjoy being around.
February 24, 2021
5 stars. This book was beautifully written and a real eye opener into the realities of nursing and the importance of kindness and empathy. A must read for everyone and anyone looking to go into/working in the healthcare sector.
May 12, 2018
From BBC Radio 4 Book of the week:
In her illuminating memoir, Christie Watson gives an account of her twenty year nursing career. At the heart of her intimate portrait of hospital life are the small acts of kindness and compassion that all of us will receive when we inevitably experience illness, whether it be ourselves or our loved ones.
We accompany Christie when she becomes a student nurse filled with anxiety as she cares for a teenage boy who is about to receive a new heart and lungs. We'll be there when she qualifies and takes up a post in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit where the children in her care are especially fragile. As the years progress, we'll discover how Christie's expertise develops. It's not long before she's mentoring junior nurses, responding to crash calls, and playing a pivotal role in caring for those at the end of their lives and those who are just beginning. As she nears the end of her years as a nurse the tables are turned when her father loses his fight to cancer and she receives the kindness and compassion that underpin what it means to nurse and to be nursed.
Christie Watson was a registered nurse for twenty years before becoming a full time, critically acclaimed and award winning writer. Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away won the Costa First Novel Award.
Read by Teresa Gallagher
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1...
In her illuminating memoir, Christie Watson gives an account of her twenty year nursing career. At the heart of her intimate portrait of hospital life are the small acts of kindness and compassion that all of us will receive when we inevitably experience illness, whether it be ourselves or our loved ones.
We accompany Christie when she becomes a student nurse filled with anxiety as she cares for a teenage boy who is about to receive a new heart and lungs. We'll be there when she qualifies and takes up a post in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit where the children in her care are especially fragile. As the years progress, we'll discover how Christie's expertise develops. It's not long before she's mentoring junior nurses, responding to crash calls, and playing a pivotal role in caring for those at the end of their lives and those who are just beginning. As she nears the end of her years as a nurse the tables are turned when her father loses his fight to cancer and she receives the kindness and compassion that underpin what it means to nurse and to be nursed.
Christie Watson was a registered nurse for twenty years before becoming a full time, critically acclaimed and award winning writer. Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away won the Costa First Novel Award.
Read by Teresa Gallagher
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1...
March 16, 2023
A thought provoking and heart wrenching read. It made me look at so many things in a different light.
January 20, 2018
Christie Watson was a nurse for 20 years, and this book is Christie's account of her nurse training and subsequent career, and all of the fascinating experiences she encountered, people she met, and the things that she felt. As a nurse myself, I found this a really fascinating read to begin with due to the content and some of the experiences that I could relate to. However, at around the halfway mark I lost interest as the writing style was quite dry, the stories long and convoluted, and it did not grip me as much as I had hoped it would. It's a shame because this had so much potential, but it just did not pack enough of a punch for me.
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