In order to become a registered nurse, an individual has to sit for a licensing exam, which is designed to determine whether it’s safe for them to begin practice as an entry-level RN. Mims Cushing lives in Ponte Vedra Beach and has written three books.National specialty certification, also called board certification, is the highest professional credential a nurse can earn. Read it yourself and bang pots and pans all over again, in your heart. Give this book to someone who is thinking of being a nurse or is one already. It’s when we all rush in and jump on you that you should worry.” One of the nurses wishes that people impatiently waiting for help in an ER would realize that, if they are not being treated, it means someone else is in worse condition than they are: “If we don’t get to you right away, it means you’re stable. People are going to live, and people are going to die. Other times no matter how well you do your job, it just doesn’t work out. “Sometimes, “you get to be a part of a miracle. During one night shift, a nurse is nearly strangled, with a choke hold by a severely mentally ill man. A 7-year-old had fallen out of treehouse and was in cardiac arrest and the nurses worked on him for 54 minutes - as someone else made a petty request. It’s particularly frustrating when a patient is being particularly difficult when a nurse has just seen something tragic.

A few days later, the father dies, but his son will always remember that gesture. The nurses take solace in the fact that sometimes something wonderful happens as when a father takes off his rosary and places it around his son’s neck before being wheeled off to surgery. Of course the outcomes are often painful, especially when children have to see their father or mother slowly ebb away. The night shifts are particularly difficult, even hard to read about. The nurses’ stories are sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes frightening, but all offer a close-up view as to what it takes to be a nurse. The authors have captured the essence and drama of their stories. James Patterson and Matt Eversmann have come up with a book about the lives of hard-working men and women who work in emergency rooms in the United States. And the authors have dealt with, perhaps 100, day shift, night shift and flight nurses. It’s about the nurses who go about their job as emergency nurses. But much of this book does not deal with the nurses who dealt with that. They were the first responders during COVID-19. We clapped for them, we cheered for them, we banged pots and pans for them, we cried happy tears and sad.

Nurses: True Stories from America's Greatest Unsung Heroes'Īuthors: James Patterson and Matt Eversmann

Book about er nurses