Something to Add to Your Shopping Basket

Life can inspire so much literature, and in my case so much of what I write comes directly from life; but it can also be an expression of frustration.

Back in 2007 I was taking a teaching session and in the front row was a woman who took exception to everything I said, she took exception to me just being there. As the session processed she kept up an almost constant stream of negative comments and questions. It was frustrating and made my job difficult, I just wanted to snap at her to shut up and let me finish, but I didn’t. You can’t behave like a dictatorial Sunday School teacher.

A month or so later I saw an item requesting submissions for a book of essays about why people come into nursing and why they stay in it, to be called Nurses on the Run. My submission was called “More Then Making Beds and Emptying Bedpans” and took the frustration I felt doing that teaching session as my springboard. I wrote about the change and revitalisation my career took when I left working in hospital and moved out into the community, and the completely different working environment I found there. Much to my surprise my essay was accepted and the book moved into production.

That was two years ago, book publication is a slow art and can move at what feels like a snail’s pace, but last week I received an email telling me the book was published and available to buy. When I saw that it I felt filled with the same rush of excitement I always get, that excitement that I’ll be able to communicate with so many different people, people I’d never met and who didn’t know me beyond what they are reading. It’s the same excitement I felt the first time I had something published and have done ever since.

Nurses on the Run has its own website were copies of it can be ordered, found at: http://www.nursesontherunbook.com/index.php

I know I might appear biased, but this book comes as a welcome change to all the negative press nursing has been receiving lately, because its aim is to celebrate nursing and why people chose to stay in the profession.

Drew.

P.S. I owe a big thank-you to Karen Buley, the editor of Nurses on the Run. Without her hard work this book won’t have got off the ground. I’m certainly grateful to her.