Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work)

"A beautiful, profound, and profoundly important book. . . . Gordon's message is simplicity itself: sick people need skilled, humane, and insightful care that keeps their interests paramount. Registered nurses have historically provided that care, but now their ability to fulfill their crucial role faces the greatest jeopardy in the history of the profession. . . . Life Support belongs in the august company of Silent Spring, The Other America, The Feminine Mystique, and other pivotal works with the power to shape the nation's consciousness."--Washington Post

"In this enlightening, involving, in-depth book, Gordon interweaves the history and philosophy of nursing with on-the-job observations of three nurses at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital. Gordon lets the nurses speak for themselves, effectively illustrating their commitment to their profession and involving readers in real-life dramas."--Publishers Weekly

"For patients, physicians, nurses, and health policy analysts, Gordon's passionate and accessible account of the impact of managed care on skilled nursing provides clear grounds for concern."--Health Affairs

In this book, Suzanne Gordon describes the everyday work of three RNs in Boston--a nurse practitioner, an oncology nurse, and a clinical nurse specialist on a medical unit. At a time when nursing is often undervalued and nurses themselves in short supply, Life Support provides a vivid, engaging, and intimate portrait of health care's largest profession and the important role it plays in patients' lives. Life Support is essential reading for working nurses, nursing students, and anyone considering a career in nursing as well as for physicians and health policy makers seeking a better understanding of what nurses do and why we need them. For the Cornell edition of this landmark work, Gordon has written a new introduction that describes the current nursing crisis and its impact on bedside nurses like those she profiled in the book.

Health care systems often seem hobbled by rules and scrubbed clean of personality. Life Support displays their warmer, messier human side by trailing three outspoken nurses on their rounds. One works with cancer patients, another with homebound elderly, while a third mediates between patients and families, doctors and nurses. Between glimpses of large and small life dramas, author Suzanne Gordon (Prisoners of Men's Dreams) considers prejudice and ignorance about nursing. Does lack of ambition or intelligence bar nurses from medical school? Why is their care denigrated, while doctors are elevated? How will sweeping changes in health care affect them and, ultimately, us? Her responses are provocative and far-ranging.