Early praise for Healing | Coming April 12, 2022
“This is the book I want to give to all my colleagues and patients—a smart, moving, clear-eyed, yet ultimately hopeful jewel of a read on health and care from one of the most thoughtful healthcare writers I know.” — Pauline W. Chen, MD, New York Times contributor and bestselling author of Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality
“A deeply moving story of an oncology nurse forced to navigate our imperfect health care system after an ultrasound exam upends her life. Brown offers important lessons for patients and health care providers alike.” — Damon Tweedy, New York Times bestselling author of Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine
“Healing should be read by everyone, not just those facing cancer. Brown experiences both grief and revelation, and the beauty of her book is that we learn so much about hope and fear and coping, about living and dying and everything in between.” — Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD, RN, FAAN, Emeritus Dean, Columbia University School of Nursing
“By relating her own intimate experiences with cancer, Brown provides a candid critique of a system that sometimes fails people when they are most vulnerable. A brave and rare book that advocates for greater compassion in healthcare.” — Pamela F. Cipriano, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean, University of Virginia School of Nursing
“Riveting and wrenching, Theresa Brown’s memoir takes us into the heart of what it means to be mortal. Examining illness from the inside and the outside, Brown’s sure hand provides a clear-eyed narrative that’s both intimate and harrowing.” — Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, editor of Bellevue Literary Review and author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error
“An extraordinary writer, Theresa Brown brings the reader into all of her worlds, showing how cancer affected her as a patient, nurse, mother, daughter, wife, and friend. This is more than a good read. Oops, I am crying again.” — Claire M. Fagin, PhD, RN, Professor Emerita and Dean Emerita, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
“A compelling and beautiful book. Brown’s personal depth in her narrative and remarkable tie-ins across many facets of history and literature draw the reader in and make it clear how much work we have to do in healthcare to get to reliable, humane practices.” — Terry Fulmer, PhD, President, John A. Hartford Foundation, former Dean, NYU College of Nursing
The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives
Practicing nurse and New York Times bestselling author, Theresa Brown, invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in one day on a busy hospital’s cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, lives can be lost, life-altering treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Unfolding in real time—under the watchful eye of this dedicated health care professional—The Shift gives an unprecedented view behind the health care curtain to show how care really happens. The book portrays individual struggles with illness and mortality as well as larger truths about medicine in this country. By shift’s end, we have witnessed the profound intersection of hope, humanity and care that make up this one nurse’s workday.
“Compelling and compassionate human drama. If you want to understand how modern medicine ticks, fasten your seat belt and spend a day in the hospital with Theresa Brown on The Shift.” – Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine
“Written from the perspective of an immensely talented, insightful nurse,The Shift is extremely moving and inspiring. Brown makes me so proud to be a nurse.” – Claire M. Fagin, PhD, RN, Dean Emerita, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
“Theresa Brown's exacting and riveting way of telling a story evokes an empathy that is overwhelming. The ability to capture the joy when an individual survives cancer and the sorrow when they do not is a talent that Theresa has perfected. A truly memorable read.” – Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD, RN, Dean and Professor, Columbia University School of Nursing
“Nursing needs more participant/observers like Theresa Brown who can give such eloquent voice to a profession long overshadowed by medicine but no less essential to the care of patients.” – Suzanne Gordon, author of Beyond the Checklist
Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between
Critical Care is the powerful and absorbing memoir of Theresa Brown about her experiences during her first year on the job as an oncology nurse. In what she calls her past life, Brown earned a PhD in English from the University of Chicago and taught for three years in the English Department at Tufts University. Her switch from academia to nursing struck many people as strange, but the decision always made sense to her. Critical Care chronicles that intense first year of nursing and also sheds brilliant light on issues of mortality and meaning in our lives.
“Among all the recent books on medicine, Critical Care stands alone. It is a beautifully written account of a nurse’s first year on the wards, a medical memoir that combines lyricism and compassion with searing honesty and well-timed laugh-out-loud wit. What Theresa Brown has managed to do with her book is precisely what the best of nurses do with their patients – focus always on the heart of what matters. I loved this book.”
– Pauline Chen, author of Final Exam
“A must read for anyone who wants to understand health care. This extraordinary book will open your eyes to the reality of nursing. If you or your loved one ends up in the hospital, you’ll wish you had someone like Nurse Brown at your side.” – Elizabeth Cohen, MPH, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent
CRITICAL CARE is a gift from an English-teacher-turned-nurse who writes from a deeply human context about her first year in a hospital oncology ward. Nurse Theresa Brown has given us a book of stirring stories about how we live, care for the sick, and die. Fasten your set belts and get ready for a memorable read. –Richard M. Cohen, author of Blindsided and Strong at the Broken Places
“If Theresa Brown tends her patients as well as she tells her story, they are lucky patients indeed. This absorbing dispatch from the front lines of medical care captures the daily travails and triumphs of nursing with humor, compassion, and sometimes terrifying immediacy.” – Julie Salamon, author of Hospital and The Devil’s Candy