1) In the book, Critical Care, there are several occurrences of patients’ deaths. Choose one account and discuss your impressions of this experience. What, if anything, surprised you about the situation. What are your feelings about dealing with patient deaths.  

One account of a patient’s death that stood out to me was Robert’s death. This death stood out to me because not even two months before his death Brown faced her first condition A which was hard for her and now she has to face this second condition A as well. Even though Brown wasn’t physically there for when Robert went into code she still felt the effects of him dying, she also had to tell his wife that he had died. Brown was close to this family, she was friendly with them and knew them, so having to tell the wife was hard for her. Right now I can’t imagine having to tell someone that their husband or wife or thirty-plus years has died. Having to tell his wife that he died and having to go through what happens after, having to ask if she wants to stop CPR because if they do, they call the code which means he’s died. Then having to ask about an autopsy while she’s already grieving is a lot as well as having to call the funeral home to set everything up. Having to do all this when first you’ve lost a patient and second knowing the patient pretty well, it’s tough and right now I can’t imagine having to do that. 

3)In the chapter, Switch, Theresa Brown writes, “But nursing is too difficult and too important a job for help to come with a hierarchy.” Describe one example of where you see that hierarchy manifested and one example where you saw more egalitarian treatment in the book. This can include relationships between doctor and nurse, nurse and nurse, doctor and patient, or nurse and patient. 

One example of the hierarchy manifesting was when Brown is talking about Irene and her needing certain care and Brown being there and listening to the family and the patient. A clinician nurse who is higher up than Brown was looking down on her for not doing paperwork correctly. While Brown was staying to help Irene even after her shift ended because the clinician was late, Brown still got yelled at even though she did what was necessary at the time and may have even helped the patient more. Having the hierarchy gives people too much power when people should be working together to help the patients and putting them first. An example of egalitarian treatment was when Brown finally switched over to the sister wing, she would ask a question and the answer would be provided without sass or without being looked at as the new person who doesn’t know what they’re doing.  

4) Choose one section of the book (sentence, passage, chapter) that was particularly meaningful to you and explain why. 

One section of the book that was particularly meaningful to me was when Brown talks about getting hurt and not being able to work for while she recovered. It stood out to me because when we think of nurses, we don’t think about them becoming the patient or being hurt. We think that they are almost “invincible”, that nothing can go wrong. But things happen and people get hurt and having her tell us that she got hurt and that there are advantages to saying you’re a nurse when being treated, you can be treated better, it kinda shocked me. You think that these people are going to give you they’re all anyway but if you say one thing, you can be treated differently. Another thing that stuck out to me was that they didn’t know what was wrong with her for around two months, I know people have more pressing matters but still, it took two months and going to many different doctors to finally figure out what was wrong and while they were figuring it out she almost lost her job as well. It was just kind of amazing and crazy to see a glimpse at what the system looks like.  

5) Theresa Brown relates the following poem by Frank Bidart to a career in nursing: I hate and love. Ignorant fish, who even wants the fly while writhing.  How do you react to the idea of loving and hating a career in nursing? What aspects of the nursing profession do you see on both sides? 

I think that with any job there are ups and downs just like there are times that you love the job as well as times that you hate it. You may not hate your job per say but it may be something that happened that you dislike or something that you need to do, like telling a loved one that someone has died or being there when someone does die, or even when the system doesn’t work for those patients that you get close with. Then you have the parts that you love like the helping, being there for someone in their time of need. Being able to put a smile on someone’s face even if they just got bad news, that the good part of it, being able to experience your patients’ highs with them is something you’ll always remember and will make you live what you do. Another aspect that you can see both are when someone gets bad news, you hate that this is happening to them, but you can also love that fact that you get to help them recover and be there for them.