In The Nurse’s Story, the protagonist receives telephone calls at home from some patients to whom she has given her personal telephone number, a regrettable choice that I also occasionally made in those early years. Blurred boundaries can lead to blurred feelings and confusion between one’s professional and personal lives, and Gino very deftly illustrates Teri’s ongoing struggles with her boundaries as she navigates a particularly challenging professional and personal journey.
In 1982, Carol Gino published TheNurse's Story to great critical acclaim. Praised by Kirkus Review, The LA Times, author Mario Puzo, The Denver Post, and a variety of critics, readers, and publications, The Nurse's Story remains one of the seminal stories of nursing and nurse burnout.
In
this fictionalized account of the beginnings of her own nursing career, Gino
tells the story of Teri Daley, a nurse in the New York area who enters the
profession with great enthusiasm and fervor, using self-righteous determination
to fight against the disparities and inequities that she so clearly sees
permeating the American healthcare system of that era.
As
much as The Nurse’s Story tells the
story of one nurse’s experience, it is a cautionary tale for all nurses,
allowing the reader a glimpse into how a nurse can move from passion to burnout
in the course of a few short years.
Faced
with death, suffering, and pain in patients ranging from the very young to the
very old, Teri gives her all to fend off the inevitability of death, becomes
overly involved in some patients’ lives, breaks the rules, and eventually
suffers the consequences of her intense work, not to mention her own painfully stretched professional boundaries.
Reading Gino’s book, I am reminded of the beginnings of my own nursing career, when
I sometimes chose to continue to pay friendly visits to patients following
their discharge from the home care agency where I was employed.
These
issues of boundaries and the love between patients and nurses are called forth
eloquently in Gino’s deservedly well-respected book. In the Author’s Note prefacing the 1997 edition
of The Nurse’s Story, Gino writes:
“I believe with all my heart that nursing is
a calling, and that especially in this time of corporate agendas in the health
care system, with all the changes that will be invented and enforced, the most
important thing to remember, and the most healing component of that system is
still the ‘caretaker’, the nurse who
is willing to risk loving her patients---because then healing will take place
no matter what the outcome. I also know now, without a doubt, that caring for
others is the greatest gift of all….and when done with love and compassion, it
heals the healer as well.”
The
notion of burnout figures largely in The
Nurse’s Story, both implicitly and explicitly. Whether it’s during Teri’s
nursing education or her days on the wards or working private duty, we’re aware that Teri’s personal and professional lives are suffering due to her
dedication to the work that is wearing down her defenses. Explaining the
symptoms of burnout, Teri’s nursing school professor states:
“You stop being able to work to your full
capacity. You get depressed more often than usual and for longer periods of
time. You start to somatosize, you get sick more often because of the stress. Sometimes
you get more irritable, have insomnia, and when you do sleep you have
nightmares. You lose your objectivity, and one day you find that in order to
spare yourself work or pain you sacrifice your patients.”
When the professor is asked why anyone would want to come back to nursing after
taking a break or going back to school, she responds: “For the same reason you chose it in the beginning: because there is
nothing else that is as essential, as valuable. And by comparison to nursing,
everything else pales.”
And
when it comes to death and suffering, Ms. Gino’s protagonist lays it on the
line:
“In the silent space between a stopped heart
and the call for help lies everything I really am. That’s where I practice my
morality; that’s where the strongest of my beliefs is tested.”
The Nurse’s Story presents us with a
heroine who desperately wants to serve, to heal, to assuage suffering, and to share
her love and compassion with her patients. Although sometimes flawed in her modus operandi, Teri’s caring heart is
exemplary, and Ms. Gino uses Teri as her own tragic figure, a figure who comes
to recognize her own subterranean fears, and channel them into a career where
caring and healing hold center stage.
At
one point towards the end of her story, Teri shares the
following:
“Throughout my years of nursing, most people
had told me that no physical pain, including that of terminal cancer, had
caused them as much suffering as isolation. Loneliness is one of the big
killers, as are ignorance and fear. The only effective weapons, the only big
guns we have to fight with, are intimacy, knowledge and compassion.......And my nursing had always been my most
intimate connection. Sharing someone’s sickness…someone’s death…having someone
really dependent on me, had connected me more than anything else. After I’d
hugged and kissed hundreds of sick and dying bodies, helped wrap and care for
another hundred dead ones….I’d really been touched.”
The Nurse’s Story is required reading
for every nurse or aspiring nurse, and for any individual who would appreciate having
a glimpse behind the (bedside) curtain to see what can---and does---occur when a
nurse confronts her pain and embraces the learning that emerges from that hero’s
journey.
In 1982, Carol Gino gave a gift to nurses and those who want to
understand them. And that gift is as relevant today as it was when The Nurse’s Story first began
enlightening readers with its brutal honesty and its truthful, heartfelt storytelling.
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Keith Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC, is the Board Certified Nurse Coach behind NurseKeith.com and the well-known nursing blog, Digital Doorway. Please visit his online platforms and reach out for his support when you need it most.
Keith is co-host of RNFMRadio.com, a wildly popular nursing podcast; he also hosts The Nurse Keith Show, his own podcast focused on career advice and inspiration for nurses.
A widely published nurse writer, Keith is the author of "Savvy Networking For Nurses: Getting Connected and Staying Connected in the 21st Century," and has contributed chapters to a number of books related to the nursing profession. Keith has written for Nurse.com, Nurse.org, MultiViews News Service, LPNtoBSNOnline, StaffGarden, AusMed, American Sentinel University, the ANA blog, Working Nurse Magazine, and other online publications.
Mr. Carlson brings a plethora of experience as a nurse thought leader, online nurse personality, podcaster, holistic career coach, writer, and well-known successful nurse entrepreneur. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his lovely and talented wife, Mary Rives.
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