Intensive Care
“Intensive Care reminds nurses that we don't have to leave the profession to become whole again. I found myself embracing the story or poem I had read, reflecting on my own related experiences, and then eagerly anticipating what the next page would bring. What an exquisite depiction of what real nursing is about.” —Diana J. Mason, editor-in-chief, American Journal of Nursing
“Cortney Davis and Judy Schaefer, editors as well as powerful contributors to this book, have compiled a beautiful and important collection of writing. These are the people who keep us alive and bid us farewell—with unwavering sensitivity and grace. Not only do these nurses deserve to be heard, but it's also a privilege to witness their lives.” —Nell Casey, editor of Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression
In Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses, sixty-five nurses from places as diverse as California and Alaska, South America and Europe, tell us in tough, revealing poems and prose what it's like to be on the front lines of health care. These nurses, both men and women, speak to us from intensive care units and operating rooms, from patients' homes and storefront clinics, from hospitals with the latest technology to small clinics in the steamy jungles of Nicaragua. They tell us what it's like to walk in their shoes and see the drama of illness and healing unfold before their eyes.