New Book by Suzanne Gordon "Nursing Against All Odds"

pickledpepperRN · Jul 5, 2005

This is the third book of hers with the idea for nurses to be called by title and last name, "Nurse Jones" and "Doctor Patel". After at least eight years it is no longer a new idea to those who read her books. I think the industry NOT doctors are working against the interests of patients and nurses.

She is an excellent writer.

This is a book a CNA nurse should have written.

Only we would have written the book from a patient advocate perspective full of activism where RNs were the challengers (there are no victims here) versus Suzanne's "awfulizing", depressing approach. (I got that word from a CNA class.

She applauds SEIU for resorting to the tactics of guerilla theatre (RNs sending empty shoes to their legislators and Nevada RNs coming to work in their PJ s) - are you impressed?

When she finally comes around to mention the California Nurses Association she states that we "generated one of the rare pieces of good news surrounding the nursing crisis." (Bill mandating safe staffing ratios for RNs) That's the good news. Now after being successful, let's not forget to give it a downer, "Although the California nurses were able to protect their patients, the hospital industry has increased the odds against nurses by making it more difficult for them to protect their own health." (Arnolds veto of the lift team bill)

When she finally writes about the ratios in the body of her book, she gives Australia/Victoria all the billings and CNA one tiny paragraph, worthy of a footnote.

I applaud the Victoria nurses for gaining ratios and fighting to preserve them.

California's is the first LAW for all hospital units. (The first in the world (I think) ratios was The CNA sponsored 1976 regulation for ICU and NICU requiring two or fewer patients per nurse at all times.)

pickledpepperRN · Jul 15, 2005

Has anyone read this book?

I just received it and plan to read it this summer.

Anyone want to comment here about books of interest to nurses?

http://www.calnurse.org/?Action=Content&id=968

DIABESITY: THE OBESITY-DIABETES EPIDEMIC THAT THREATENS AMERICA...quot;AND WHAT WE MUST DO TO STOP IT,

by Francine R. Kaufman, MD, 336 pp., $27

Most consumers, including most nurses, have heard something about the increasing weight of Americans and the corresponding rise in cases of Type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease where your body doesn't produce enough insulin or your cells ignore the insulin. And many are also aware of the growing numbers of children being diagnosed with this disease -- what used to be called Adult Onset diabetes.

In fact, nearly two-thirds of American adults are overweight and one-third is obese. Almost a third of American youth are overweight, and more than 15 percent are obese. While some are surprised, few seem alarmed. But public health officials are downright panicked, and so is Dr. Francine Kaufman, a pediatric endocrinologist and past president of the American Diabetes Association.

Her book, Diabesity, should sound that alarm loud and clear.

Kaufman's insight comes from her years in practice as well as her own childhood experience living with a grandmother who had diabetes. She has seen first hand the devastating effects this disease can have. The relationship of obesity to the development of diabetes became apparent to her early in her career.

She is passionate in her commitment to changing the course of what portends to be an epidemic of diabetes and heart disease in our lifetime, affecting younger and younger people across the globe, and her passion comes through in her writing.

pickledpepperRN · Jul 30, 2005

Found another published review:

..."Gordon presents the central problem we face as how to find enough nurses in a world where women have many options, most men are still not interested, and the population is living longer with more chronic and acute health needs. The world must work hard to understand and value nurses if it is to overcome the endless cycles of shortage, she argues, and if we are to have the qualified, satisfied nurses we need to care for us in the 21st Century."

"Nursing Against the Odds" is an important tool in that struggle.

Review by Harry Jacobs Summers

Nursing Editor: Sandy Summers, MSN, MPH, RN

Reviewed July 19, 2005

http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/media/books/nursing_against_odds.html

anoswaldoddity · Sep 2, 2011

:rckn:This book articulated for me what I could not. I have read it over and over and have gleaned something new every time I do. The author is to be applauded for her passion to articulate 'our voice' as the profession struggles to overcome its 'silence'. :rckn::rckn::rckn: