"You will not find a group less in favor of automatically aggressive, invasive medical care than intensive care nurses, because we see the pointless suffering it often causes in patients and families. Intensive care is at best a temporary detour during which a patient’s instability is monitored, analyzed, and corrected, but it is at worst a high tech torture chamber, a taste of hell during a person’s last days on earth."
posted by Baron Kriminel on Nov 26, 2012 - 45 comments

Nurse Fiction and Pineapples.
posted by mattbucher on Sep 22, 2006 - 15 comments

Playing Doctors And Nurses Often Requires Loving Patients. Not to mention a high level of kitsch-resistance. Here's a delightful collection of nurse-obsessed penny-dreadfuls from the engaging Tiny Pinneapple weblog, complete with covers and zippy, erotocally charged made-to-order blurbs: "It was fortunate that Portugal had always held a strong attraction for Nigel Baxter, for otherwise she might not have agreed to her uncle Evan's request that she give up her vacation plans in order to take on a case there. Evan Baxter was one of David Wycherly's doctors, and since Mr. Wycherly had suffered a leg fracture while vacationing at his home in Estoril, Dr. Baxter felt that Nigel could care for him and at the same time fulfill her wish to see Portugal."
posted by MiguelCardoso on Feb 9, 2003 - 5 comments

"Sometimes I question the wisdom of continuing on in a profession that is under siege and under valued. I am aging, I am tired and some days I don’t know how I can continue to teach the newest and brightest of our profession." Part of an essay written last year by Cheryl McGaffic, one of the nursing professors killed by a disgruntled student at the University of Arizona yesterday.
posted by rcade on Oct 29, 2002 - 13 comments