Nursing against the Odds

Exhausted by heavy work, mandatory overtime, and the stress of looking after hospital patients who are sicker, frailer, and in need of ever more high-tech intervention, nurses are leaving the bedside faster than they can be replaced.... People who are interested in the health care system or in their own health care should pay attention to the issues Ms. Gordon raises in this book. But nurses especially should read it.

-- Cornelia Dean * New York Times *

Gordon uses anecdotes, research findings, and statistics to develop the list of contributing factors and potential resolutions to the current nursing shortage in more developed countries. She offers a comprehensive, international overview of the key issues.

-- Ellen Zupa * The Lancet *

Gordon's detailed information in the form of interviews, documented research, groundbreaking advances and setbacks, statistics, and opinions about the state of nursing are compelling.... You will recognize that there isn't any issue related to nurses and nursing that Gordon hasn't examined.... This book isn't just for nurses. It is a comprehensive depiction of how nursing is indeed working against the odds to provide a safe, caring environment for patients. Nurses hold the key to the solutions. Gordon gives us the data and talking points to move to the action stage.

-- Kay Bensing * Advance for Nurses *

One of the most comprehensive and insightful discussions... of the complex set of relationships that have developed over the years between doctors and nurses. Nursing against the Odds should be required reading for all nurses, doctors, and nursing and medical students,... who will find this book both provocative and enlightening.

* New England Journal of Medicine *

Suzanne Gordon, a national award-winning journalist, author, and adjunct professor, is an advocate for all nurses. Gordon isn't a nurse, but believes nursing to be an honorable profession and the backbone of our health care system.... This book addresses the main forces that drive nurses out of their workplace; the crucial issues that deprive communities of adequate care of the sick, and the class and status divisions within the profession. But Gordon doesn't focus only on the problems, past and present, facing the nursing profession, but the remedies as well.

-- Terry RatnerRNMFA * Nurseweek *

The nurses Gordon describes in multiple anecdotes are almost always clinically astute and are frequently the first, occasionally the only, professionals to observe, interpret, and respond appropriately to signs and symptoms that foretell disaster for the patient. Despite the horror stories of disasters and averted disasters, Gordon fortunately places the issues of nurses and doctors at work in a larger historical and sociological context.

-- Barbara A. Mark, Ph.D., RN, FAAN * Journal of the American Medical Associati