MEDIATIONS ON HOPE

Nursing is a time honored profession with unique challenges and unique rewards as illustrated in MEDIATIONS ON HOPE: Nurses’ Stories about Motivation and Inspiration (Kaplan Publishers; On sale: October 7, 2008; Trade Paperback Original; Price: $14.95). Depending on the area of one’s practice “hope” can hide behind the harshest moment or appear in the most innocent of situations. In more than twenty personal stories, readers are treated to the richest range of emotions, events and experiences as nurses write about what has nurtured their own spirits and professional lives.

This collection of inspiring firsthand accounts from every area of the nursing profession including hospitals, private practices, and home health care, heralds special moments that have helped sustain and bolstered the faith of many committed men and women in the nursing profession. In The Peaches, Nancy Harless, tells a story of humor, hope and healing in the post-war Balkans. In My Life of Hope, Doris Urfer shares how the special relationship between her daughter and a pediatric practitioner not only brought a touch of humanity to a sterile medical wasteland but actually inspired her to become a nurse herself. Madeleine Mysko’s cantankerous patient in Mr. Bunyan makes a non-verbal peace offering by sharing a sun-warmed tomato from his balcony garden in a moment when the patient realizes he’s not the only one having a bad day. MEDITATIONS ON HOPE shares these and many more gripping and inspiring moments filled with the human drama that is an integral part of the nursing life, and moves these stories from the oral traditions of previous generations and showcases the diverse talents of the people who now populate the profession.