The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives - Paperback

by Theresa Brown (Author)

"An engrossing human drama . . . The Shift is one nurse's story, but it contains elements of every nurse's experience."--The Wall Street Journal

Practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day on a busy teaching hospital's cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, lives can be lost, life-altering treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Unfolding in real time--under the watchful eyes of this dedicated professional and insightful chronicler of events--The Shift gives an unprecedented view into the individual struggles as well as the larger truths about medicine in this country. By shift's end, we have witnessed something profound about hope and humanity.

Front Jacket

"A wonderfully told story of the life-and-death reality of a hospital . . .

. . . Theresa Brown helps us understand the dramas and the dangers as the beautifully evocative stories of nurses and doctors, patients and family members, overlap and entwine during a twelve-hour shift."
--Perri Klass, MD, author of Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor

Practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day on a busy teaching hospital's cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, lives can be lost, life-altering treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Unfolding in real time--under the watchful eyes of this dedicated professional and insightful chronicler of events--The Shift gives an unprecedented view into the individual struggles as well as the larger truths about medicine in this country. By shift's end, we have witnessed something profound about hope and humanity.

"Meticulous, absorbing . . . Stands out for its honesty, clarity, and heart. [Brown] juggles the fears, hopes, and realities of a twelve-hour shift in a typical urban hospital with remarkable insight and unflagging care.
Her memoir is a must-read." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Riveting . . . Should be required reading for all incoming medical and nursing students--or anyone who is a patient or visitor in a hospital." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"What makes Brown's story shine are the touching and sometimes bizarre moments that make real life in a hospital stranger than fiction." --The Boston Globe

"An empathetic and absorbing narrative as riveting as a TV drama." --Kirkus Reviews

"Captures perfectly [a nurse's] central role in any patient's life." --Susan Love, MD, author of Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book

Author Biography

Theresa Brown, RN, author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift, has been a contributor to the New York Times. Her writing appears on CNN.com and in the American Journal of Nursing, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She has been a guest on MSNBC Live and NPR's Fresh Air. Her first book was Critical Care, and during what she calls her past life, she received a PhD in English from the University of Chicago. She lectures nationally and internationally on issues related to nursing, health care, and end of life.