The Shift - by Theresa Brown (Paperback)

About the Book

Practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience a day in the life of a nurse working on a hospital's busy cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, patients' lives can be lost, life-altering medical treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Brown gives an unprecedented view into individual struggles as well as larger truths about medicine in this country, hope, healing, and humanity.

Book Synopsis

"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.

From the Back Cover

"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

Review Quotes

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

"This riveting account of a day in the life of a highly competent and compassionate but overtaxed bedside nurse provides an up-close, insider's view from the perspective of one of the worker bees of the medical world. It raises important questions about staffing, shift lengths, various protocols, and the role of touch, empathy, and record keeping in healthcare . . . The living, breathing heart of Brown's book lies in her vivid, composite profiles of the handful of patients (disguised for privacy) who come under her watch on the day in question, and her enormous concern for them." -The Barnes Noble Review

"The Shift . . . should be required reading for all incoming medical and nursing students--or anyone who is a patient or visitor in a hospital . . . Her story is riveting in the exacting way she recounts the way her day unfolds." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Brown does an excellent job of taking us moment by moment through her day . . . keeping the narrative flowing. The reader feels her affection and deep sense of responsibility for her patients." -Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"What makes Brown's story shine are the touching and sometimes bizarre moments that make real life in a hospital stranger than fiction . . . Brown is able to make her case from the strongest possible vantage point: inside the hospital, where she is doing the work so few of us have the guts to do." -The Boston Globe

"This meticulous, absorbing shift-in-the-life account of one nurse's day on a cancer ward stands out for its honesty, clarity, and heart. Brown . . . juggles the fears, hopes, and realities of a 12-hour shift in a typical urban hospital with remarkable insight and unflagging care. Her memoir is a must-read." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

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.