“At my job, people die,” writes Theresa Brown, capturing both the burden and the singular importance of her profession. CRITICAL CARE chronicles Brown, a former English Professor at Tufts University, on her first year as an RN in medical oncology and the emotional ups and downs she encounters in caring for strangers. In contrast to other medical memoirs that highlight the work of doctors, this book focuses on the critical role played by nurses as health care providers.
Brown walks readers through the rigors of chemotherapy, reveals the odd things that can happen to people’s bodies in hospitals, and throws in some humor with her chapter titled, “Doctors Don’t Do Poop.” During her first year on the hospital floor, Brown is seriously injured but her recovery allows her to take a new perspective on the health care system, giving her a better understanding of the challenges faced by her patients.
Ultimately, Critical Care conveys the message of learning to embrace life in times of health and sickness. “The antidote to death,” Brown says, “is life.” Brown writes powerfully and honestly about her experiences, shedding light on the issues of mortality and meaning in our lives.
Advance Praise for Critical Care
“Among all the recent books on medicine, Critical Care stands alone. It is a beautifully written account of a nurse’s first year on the wards, a medical memoir that combines lyricism and compassion with searing honesty and well-timed laugh-out-loud wit. What Theresa Brown has managed to do with her book is precisely what the best of nurses do with their patients – focus always on the heart of what matters. I loved this book.”
— Pauline Chen, author of Final Exam
“If Theresa Brown tends her patients as well as she tells her story, they are lucky patients indeed. This absorbing dispatch from the front lines of medical care captures the daily travails and triumphs of nursing with humor, compassion, and sometimes terrifying immediacy.”
— Julie Salamon, author of Hospital and The Devil’s Candy
“Critical Care is a gift from an English-teacher-turned-nurse who writes from a deeply human context about her first year in a hospital oncology ward. Nurse Theresa Brown has given us a book of stirring stories about how we live, care for the sick and die. Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a memorable read.”
— Richard M. Cohen, author of Blindsided and Strong at the Broken Places
“Brown shows us what it means to be a nurse and helps us understand that nurses need as much intensive care as their patients. Sometimes more!”
— Suzanne Gordon, author of Nursing Against the Odds