8 "Must Reads" for Healthcare Professionals:

As stated in a previous blog, posted here, a great way to relax after a long day is to escape your world and enter another. We have compiled a list of must reads for any healthcare professionals (or anyone, really!) Have you read any of these books? If so, let us know what you thought! Or if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear them!

1.   Bed Number 10 – Sue Baier

 

Seen through the eyes of a patient totally paralyzed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, this moving book takes you through the psychological and physical pain of an eleven month hospital stay. Bed Number Ten reads like a compelling novel but is entirely factual.

You will meet:

The ICU staff who learned to communicate with the paralyzed woman- and those who did not bother.

The physicians whose visits left her baffled about her own case

The staff and physicians who spoke to her and others who did not recognize her presence.

The nurse who tucked Sue tightly under the covers, unaware that she was soaking with perspiration

The nurse who took the time to feed her drop by drop, as she slowly learned how to swallow again.

The physical therapist who could read her eyes and spurred her on the move again as if the battle were his own.

In these pages, which reveal the caring, the heroism, and the insensitivity sometimes found in the health care fields, you may even meet people you know.

 

2.   The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- Rebecca Skloot

 

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells- taken without her knowledge- became one of the most important tools for medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

 

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually known, buried in an unmarked grave.

 

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1050s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia – a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo – to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

 

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

 

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?
         
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

 

3.   Cooked: An Inner City Nursing Memoir – Carol Karels, RN

 

In May 1971, Look magazine feature an article entitled “Chicago’s cook county Hospital: A Terrible Place.” The article provided an in-depth look at the largest public hospital in the country, one located on Chicago’s dangerous gang-controlled and drug-infested West Side. Months later, the author, then a naïve suburban teen, and one hundred other nursing students began their training there, despite newspaper articles that warned that the hospital might close any day. At “the Country,” where nurses’ duties included swatting flies in the OR and delousing patients, both nurses and doctors were expected to prove care under the most desperate of circumstances. “Cooked provides an inside look at the 2,000-bed hospital, often referred to as a ‘19^th century sick house,’ that provided health care to millions of Chicago’s poor.

4.   My Name is Marry Sutter – Robin Oliveira

 

Marry Sutter is a brilliant, headstrong midwife from Albany, New York, who dreams of becoming the prejudices against women in medicine-and eager to run away from her recent heartbreak- Mary leaves home and travels to Washington, D.C. to help tend to legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of William Stipp and James Blevens- two surgeons who fall unwittingly in love with Mary’s courage, will, and stubbornness in the face of suffering-and resisting her mother’s pleas to return home to help with the birth of her twin sister’s baby, Mary peruse her medical career in the desperately overwhelmed hospitals of the capital. A great read for those with ambitious career goals.

 

5.   Strength for the Moment- Lori Hogan

 

The role of the family caregiver is very rewarding, but being a caregiver can also be physically and emotionally exhausting. Caregivers often feel overwhelmed by their work and the demands of those receiving their care, and these demands touch every aspect of their lives. Still, despite the challenges, millions of family caregivers provide care to many of the 36 million seniors living in the United States. AARP counts 65.7 million caregivers in America today- almost one-third of the adult U.S. population.

 

Strength for the Moment responds to the needs of these special people who give of themselves to help others maintain quality of life in the home. Combining inspiring stores, prayer and scripture, and practical advice, this book provides much needed encouragement, emotional nourishment, and affirmation.

 

Home care is a challenge, but it can ultimately be a deeply rewarding experience. Strength for the Moment promises to inspire caregivers and helps them face each day refreshed in their thinking and prepared to provide the best care for those they love the most.

 

6.   The Hedge People: How I kept My Sanity and Sense of Humor as an Alzheimer’s Caregiver – Louise Carey

 

Our large front yard is surrounded by a tall cypress hedge. At least it’s a hedge to everyone except my father-in-law. To Art, a retired pastor with dementia and failing eyesight, it’s a potential congregation. To him, the trunks of the hedge look like legs, and in his mind, there’s a large group of people just outside the front door who need to hear the gospel.

 

I call them the hedge people.

 

The first time Art spotted the hedge people, he whispered in awe, “There’s a small part of a million people out there. Do you think any of them play the piano?”

 

“Not a one,” I answered, quite sure I was being truthful.

 

Sometimes Art stands on the front steps and preaches to the hedge people. Sometimes, he asks me to join him. Art and me, in the middle of the front yard, waving our arms and beckoning the hedge people to come and take refuge from the cold.”

 

In the Hedge People, author Louise Carey helps you find humor in the unpredictable journey of caring for the elderly. Written from her experience as a caregiver, Carey offers you solace in the stories and joy in the journey as you face the daily challenges of care giving with God’s help.

 

7.   Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul, Second Dose: More Stories to Honor and Inspire Nurses – Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, LeAnn Thieman, L.P.N. LeAnn

 

Most people don’t become nurses because of the pay, working conditions, or the convenient hours. Men and women become nurses because they want to make a difference in the lives of others through the use of their compassionate skills and hard work. Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul, Second Dose, underscores why nurses enter the profession – and why they stay.

 

This collection of true stores encourages, uplifts, and honors nurses; reenergizing them with hope, health, and healing during challenging times. Through laughter and teams, nurses share their memories and tales, inspiring and honoring one another as they continue their journey. You will be moved by the heartwarming revelations of nurses who have just started out in the field, as well as by veteran nurses who share their experiences of making a difference in the lives of their patients.

 

8.   Saving Lives: Why the Media’s Portrayal of Nurses Puts US all at Risk – Sandy Summers, Harry Jacobs Summers

 

Popular television shows like Grey’s Anatomy and House lead people to think that nurses simply push gurneys and drive romantic plots. Not so for the 12 million dedicated women and men working in the very real, very demanding field of nursing. Written by the leaders of The Truth About Nursing, Saving Lives highlights the essential role nurses play in health care and offers concrete steps to help nurses educate the public about their important profession. “Saving Lives has a serious point, that the devaluation of nursing… discourages students from the field and contributes to a critical nursing shortage.” – Newsweek “A stunning expose of the media’s inaccurate portrayals. It should be mandatory reading for media creators, physicians, policy makers, and the public.” – Diana J. Mason, RN, PhD, FAAN, Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Nursing.

 

 

(Book overviews are from barnesandnoble.com)