Memoir of a Nurse Working On the Frontlines of COVID-19


Book Description

Memoir of a Nurse Working on the Frontlines of COVID-19 By: Holly Blassingame, BSN, RN In this memoir, Holly Blassingame shares her (ongoing) experience as a nurse on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, shedding light on the struggles and personal hardships she and other medical workers have faced during this difficult time. From confusion and fear to exhaustion and loneliness, Blassingame paints a true picture of what a nurse on the frontline goes through so that those on the outside can better understand their hard work, dedication, and resiliency. Though the pandemic is not over, Memoir of a Nurse Working on the Frontlines of COVID-19 gives hope that those suffering are in good hands and that the human spirit can never be extinguished.




Life, Death and Biscuits


Book Description

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A heart-breaking story of courage and compassion from the front line of the toughest battle our nurses have had to fight. Anthea Allen’s writing is raw, honest and full of love for those she cares for.’ Susanna Reid




Nurses On The Inside: Stories Of The HIV/AIDS Epidemic In NYC


Book Description

Nurses On The Inside details the stories of two nurses who witnessed the frontline of the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Although some of the names, locations, and events have been changed or dramatized, it is important to remember this: this is what really happened to them, and it happened not only to them in New York, but in San Francisco, LA, Miami, and dozens of other cities in the US. Ellen and Valery were not alone, there were hundreds of nurses who went through this experience. They want to tell this story to give a voice to a generation lost, allowing the world to remember. This history cannot be repeated.




What It Means to Be a Nurse


Book Description

A lighthearted, inspiring, and timely look at the daily challenges and triumphs nurses face—all while reminding nurses exactly why they continue to work on the frontline. Being a nurse is not an easy task. From the endless hours battling COVID-19 to an often-times stressful work environment to those delightful patients who always insist they somehow know more than the medical professionals helping them—RNs everywhere know the struggle. What It Means to Be a Nurse takes an amusing look at some of the challenges these medical professionals face on a daily basis. Adding a laugh-out-loud spin that is both entertaining and relatable, this must-have book reminds nurses exactly why they love their hospitals, doctors, and patients, even on the tough days. With a heaping helping of humor and love, this book shares the inspiring and heartwarming stories that show us all why nurses are our heroes.




Undercover Epicenter Nurse


Book Description

Undercover Epicenter Nurse blows the lid off the COVID-19 pandemic. What would you do if you discovered that the media and the government were lying to us all? And that hundreds, maybe thousands of people were dying because of it? Army combat veteran and registered nurse Erin Olszewski’s most deeply held values were put to the test when she arrived as a travel nurse at Elmhurst Hospital in the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. After serving in Iraq, she was back on the front lines—and this time, she found, the situation was even worse. Rooms were filthy, nurses were lax with sanitation measures, and hospital-acquired cases of COVID-19 were spreading like wildfire. Worse, people who had tested negative multiple times for COVID-19 were being labeled as COVID-confirmed and put on COVID-only floors. Put on ventilators and drugged up with sedatives, these patients quickly deteriorated—even though they did not have coronavirus when they checked in. Doctors-in-training were refusing to perform CPR—and banning nurses from doing it—on dying patients whose families had not consented to “Do Not Resuscitate” orders. Erin wasn’t about to stand by and let her patients keep dying on her watch, but she knew that if she told the truth, people wouldn’t believe her. It was just too shocking. Willing to go to battle for her patients, Erin made the decision to go deep undercover, recording conversations with other nurses, videos of malpractice, and more. She began to share what she found on social media. Unsurprisingly, she was fired for it. Now, Erin is standing up to tell the whole horrifying story of what happened inside Elmhurst Hospital to demand justice for those who fell victim to the hospital’s greed. Not only must the staff be held accountable for their unethical actions; but also, this kind of corruption must be destroyed so that future Americans are not put at risks. The deaths have to end, and Erin won’t rest until the bad actors are exposed. Undercover Epicenter Nurse: How Fraud, Negligence, and Greed Led to Unnecessary Deaths at Elmhurst Hospital is a shocking and infuriating inside exposé of the American healthcare system gone wrong. At the same time, it’s the story of a woman who traveled from the small-town streets of Wisconsin, to the battlefields of Iraq, to the mean streets of Queens, on a quest to help fight for her country. With this book, the real battle has begun.




COVID-19 Frontliners


Book Description

This book holds the stories of nine nurses from across the United States, who volunteered to work in New York City hospitals during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. These nurses left their ordinary lives behind to fly on empty planes to a city overwhelmed by a plague. Thrust onto the coronavirus wards, they saw and did incredible things. Faced with adversity they put patients' lives before their own, working tirelessly day after day in unimaginable conditions. These first-hand accounts provide a powerful look at what it was really like on the front lines of health care during a global pandemic. The stories these nurses have are crucial to share with the world. This should never happen again.




A Nurse's Story


Book Description

Moving, honest and inspiring – this is a nurse’s true story of life in a busy A&E department during the Covid-19 crisis. Working in A&E is a challenging job but nurse Louise Curtis loves it. She was newly qualified as an advanced clinical practitioner, responsible for life or death decisions about the patients she saw, when the unthinkable happened and the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. The stress on the NHS was huge and for the first time in her life, the job was going to take a toll on Louise herself. In A Nurse’s Story she describes what happened next, as the trickle of Covid patients became a flood. And just as tragically, staff in A&E were faced with the effects of lockdown on society. They worried about their regulars, now missing, and saw an increase in domestic abuse victims and suicide attempts as loneliness hit people hard. By turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, this book shines a light on the compassion and dedication of hospital staff during such dark times. 'An important memoir that we all need to read right now.' – Closer




I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out: True Stories of Becoming a Nurse


Book Description

This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses, who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks," first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession. The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more "important" procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager is the sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients. What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.




Life on the Grocery Line (Second Edition)


Book Description

On his first day as a cashier at Dream Grocers, Daniel imagines that the worst he'll have to deal with on the job are the occasional grumpy customers and long days on his feet. But in just one week's time, reality changes entirely as the COVID-19 pandemic creates a frenzied panic throughout Daniel's home state of Colorado. Now, he's suddenly being called a hero just for showing up at his job, and he isn't sure how to feel about that. As the uncertainty and paranoia around the virus spread rapidly, Daniel tries to stay afloat and not let the irate hordes of customers bring him down. He learns more than he ever expected to about humanity's response to fear, observing most prominently the way that some people look down on the very workers they deem "essential."




Year of the Nurse: A Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir


Book Description

This book is for anyone, nurse or otherwise, who is furious about how 2020 went down and—how 2021 is going. On April 25th, 2021 at 10:55 in the morning I messaged my chat group of girlfriends from where I work as a nurse on an ICU floor: “Nothing like feeling strongly suicidal at a job where you’re supposed to be keeping people alive,” and then tweeted that my “mental health wasn’t great” and deleted the Twitter app off of my phone because I didn’t want to “overshare.” That I felt like dying. That I would’ve rather died than still be at work. I am not alone. In 2020 there were roughly four million nurses in America. Only 2.7 million U.S. soldiers fought in the Vietnam War. Those who came back from Vietnam, having witnessed atrocities—and in some cases, participated in them—were changed forever. You can’t send four million people into a wartime-equivalent situation without psychological consequences. And yet that’s what America has done. Nurses spent a year battling a largely unknown assailant. Running low on gear. Fearing we might bring something deadly home. Getting coughed on by people who pretended that our fights were imaginary, that our struggles—watching people die, day after day, no matter what we did—were literally fake. Nurses are scarred. And unless people understand what we went through and commit to never let anyone lie in the future about public health, we will never become whole. Year of the Nurse: A Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir is Cassandra Alexander's poignant effort to come to grips with suicidal ideation and PTSD after being a covid nurse in an ICU in 2020. Comprised of original essays and her chronological journals, tweets, and emails as she attempted to save lives, including her own—this book will let you experience last year from the bedside. Come and understand what it was like.