Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines

by Suzanne Gordon, Claire Fagin (Contributor)

An examination of the changing role of the nurse captures the day-to-day drama of three nurses' lives and demonstrates their crucial role in and outside of the hospitals

Genres: Nursing, Nonfiction, Health, Health Care, Medical

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Suzanne Gordon is an award winning journalist and author who writes about healthcare delivery and health care systems. She is the author of more than 15 books, including Beyond the Checklist and First Do Less Harm, both published in 2012.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life Support describes the nursing profession through the author shadowing three nurses with quite different responsibilities in Boston as a framework for discussing changes in the nursing profession. One could hope that things had improved since the 1997 publication date, but I suspect they are worse.

These few lines near the end of the book sum up the problem. "...the goal of managed care companies is not to cut hospital labor costs and redistribute the savings to home care. Their goal is to squeeze the system in every setting - whether it be hospital or home - and redistribute any savings to shareholder dividends and executive salaries."

[Lynn Silsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read most but did not finish it. Ran into the problem that anything timely/topical has - once the book is no longer timely, provided the reader is not coming at it with the perspective of a historian, the reader starts to question what exactly s/he's getting out of it - how relevant, how accurate is this book's take now? I found it well-written and interesting; of course, I was more absorbed in the parts that had something to say about what is universal and still the case about the healthcare system and nursing.

[Laurie Barkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Life Support:Three Nurses on the Front Lines (1997), Suzanne Gordon, a non-nurse journalist who writes passionately about nursing, showcases the personal and professional lives of three expert nurses at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital during the glory days of primary nursing. Before the mergers and cuts of Managed Care in the mid-90s, these nurses practiced at full capacity, improving their patients’ lives and experiencing professional satisfaction in the process.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from the library at work because I hadn't read a good nonfiction hospital-based book in a while. This one was good but not one I'd have to read again. Gordon focuses on the role of nurses in hospitals in the early 1990s, equally telling the stories of 3 specific nurses and stressing the effects healthcare reform over time has had on the role of nurses in America's hospitals.
The portions of the book where she was discussing the 3 nurses and their patients were by far the more interesing sections. Jeanne is a nurse manager on an inpatient unit whose job is supposed to be equal parts training and supervising new nurses, aides, etc. and caring for the unit's patients, though she finds herself with sicker patients and fewer trained/licensed nurses to care for them. Nancy is a nurse in an outpatient chemotherapy unit who must balance giving her patients the medicine needed to treat their cancers with the varous effects such treatment has, not merely physical side effects from being sick during the treatment, but financial worries, decreased libido that stresses marriages, and emotional lows when the treatment fails. Ellen is a homecare nurse caring for patients with chronic illness, many elderly and recently discharged from the hospital, who finds her patients tend to come home too early and are unequipped to deal with the new reality of their medical situation.
While none of the specific patients overlap in the nurses' stories, the theme that is very pervasive is that these patients are all on the verge of dying and many do by the end of the book. Because she wanted to focus on nurses who are hospital based, as opposed to say a nurse practitioner at a doctor's office, Gordon's efforts to choose 3 different nursing perspectives still resulted in finding women who deal with the same issue of having very sick patients as their charges.
The other portions seem largely anti-doctor and feminist, which Gordon admits to be true, as she is a strong advocate for nurses, who are predominatnly women, and wants to make her point known that if you mess with nurses, you're harming the entire healthcare system.

[Astin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gordon writes as an outsider-looking-in to the world of nursing, and her perspective is important. Her distance allows her to appreciate innuendo and context much more than somebody like me who is in the trenches. This book gave me perspective not only to what I do every day, but also the greater context of a complex health care delivery system. It was a reminder that the nursing role is vital, and a charge to continue advancing that role as our healthcare system is again remolded by people who do not practice.

[katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the work of three nurses in the Boston area. For me it helped reinforce my decision to go to nursing school, and made me excited about my future. The nurses whose stories are shared do amazing, very human work. They are an ideal of what nurses can be.

[Maeghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read, the book follows 3 nurses working in Boston in the '90s. It touches on some interesting topics, like the doctor/nurse/patient relationship, the healthcare industry, and the publics perception of nursing.

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight on what it's like to be a nurse and what it takes to be a nurse, and how the attacks on health care (particularly on nurses) has negatively affected patient care overall in the U.S. Looking forward to reading Suzanne Gordon's more recent book Nursing Against the Odds.

[Cathy M.]

Good overview of the history if Nursing & Healthcare thru 1996. There in lies the problem as it it so behind that it is somewhat boring. It also was rather redundant. For someone in healthcare during the 80-90's it might be fun remembering what is reviewed.

[Lindsay Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't finish the last 50 pages, they were just not interesting. I loved the descriptions of the nurses and their patients and wish the book had been more centered around that. It was an okay book, but not what I expected.

[Kat H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book about the state of nursing in this country. Not sure how interesting it would be to anyone non-nurses but I think it's fascinating.

[Cathy Koerner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good historical book about nursing, but now outdated. Actually quite frightening because it it true.