Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Shift comes a frank look at navigating the world of healthcare as a cancer nurse becomes a patient and experiences the system from the other side.​

Despite her training and years of experience as an oncology and hospice nurse, Brown finds it difficult to navigate the medical maze from the other side of the bed. Why is she so often left in the dark about procedures and treatments? Why is she expected to research her own best treatment options? Why is there so much red tape? At times she’s mad at herself for not speaking up and asking for what she needs but knows that being a ＂difficult＂ patient could mean she gets worse care.

Of the almost four million women in this country living with breast cancer, many have had, like Brown, a treatable form of the disease. Both unnerving and extremely relatable, her experience shows us how our for-profit health care industry ＂cures＂ us but at the same time leaves so many of us feeling alienated and uncared for. As she did so brilliantly in her New York Times bestseller, The Shift, Brown relays the unforgettable details of her daily life--the needles, the chemo drugs, the rubber gloves, the bureaucratic frustrations--but this time from her new perch as a patient, looking back at some of her own cases and considering what she didn’t know then about the warping effects of fear and the healing virtues of compassion. ＂People failed me when I was a patient and I failed patients when working as a nurse. I see that now,＂ she writes.

Healing is must-read for all of us who have tried to find healing through our health-care system.

Theresa Brown, RN, author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift, is a New York Times contributor. Her writing also 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. Find her at theresabrown.com