Product Description

How do Nurses really feel about their work? Do they become distant and uninvolved with pain and suffering to protect themselves from self-destruction over the years? Do they genuinely care what happens to their patients or is it merely a calloused race to the finish line of quitting time each shift? Any reader who has laid in a hospital bed or had a loved one hospitalized will be able to immediately relate to this book and it's lovingly detailed descriptions of the events unfolding in the lives of both patients and their primary caregivers, the Nursing staff. There are surprises; this is not a pink, warm fuzzy diary but a visceral accounting of the true struggle to maintain humanity and compassion in an environment that runs the risk of becoming immune to it's own drama. The pieces are delivered in the format of often graphic prose and poetry and forward the unexpected combination of pathos and hope. Expect to need tissues as a reading aid. This is a book not only for the lay public but for the health care professions as well; it normalizes the extraordinary experiences of those whose work it is to sustain and save life, whose charge is to heal and to help. There is reassurance in each line of these pages and it should be required reading for all nursing students and health care professionals in addition to being a primer for all those whose life leads them through illness, either in a hospital bed or beside it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132201 in eBooks
• Published on: 2007-05-16
• Released on: 2007-05-16
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

Review
I can't help but be in total awe of Susi Franco, not just for her perceptions gained as an RN but also for her sheer will & determination to overcome the major adversities she has faced: an abusive relationship, single mother of 6 children, her own physical disability as well as her one daughter.
The writings in this book are visceral & one cannot help but feel the white-knuckle ride of the roller coaster as they read. Sometimes laughing out loud at the vignettes penned in "A Nurses' Thoughts, A Typical Day", reeling anger from "HM Moans" and total devastation with "A Nurses'Child".
This book took me two days to get through. I couldn't quit reading.
The author mourns that as a nurse, daughter and mother that she has sometimes failed to "save them" from their peril. On the contrary - as you will read, Franco has done anything but fail her patients & loved ones.
Utilizing her knowledge, skills, experiences & true compassion as a nurse, sister, daughter, mother, patient...Susi Franco gives all she can give & when that has become exhausted, she has the grace to lay it before her higher power with faith & courage that in that prayer...the right thing will be done.
Highly recommended reading for all walks - you won't be disappointed and it will grip your heart.

About the Author
At age 36 with six children in tow, Susi Franco loaded up a tiny U-Haul with the bare necessities, leaving her abusive husband a letter of explanation and moved almost a thousand miles away to attend Nursing College. She and her children would stay in a womens' shelter, a housing project and finally a trailer, enduring harsh privation & sacrifice so she could earn her Nursing Degree and shape a new life for her children and herself.Never expecting the encounter with Life and Death on such a personal level or the poignant events with patients whose care she was given, her observations led her to begin scrawling notes on scrap paper and old order sheets, filling notebooks to capture the moments and preserve them, feeling these were once in a lifetime events deserving acknowledgement. Raw with emotion at times, brimming with palpable drama, these vignettes are tender and heart-rending accounts of the true events unfolding in the career and life of a Registered Nurse.Susi spent the first half of her life in the arts performing in music; circumstances of single parenthood forced her to pursue securing a more reliable method of raising her brood alone; Nursing became that vehicle. Spanning her career from the beginning, her book chronicles the unwavering commitment of the discipline of Nursing.Susi kept extensive journals throughout childhood into her adult life , has been nationally published in the Orange Willow Review and online in various venues. Her writing has been the subject of newspaper stories and a cable tv show; also featured in "The Tails of the Village Idiot" by Nathan Hutnak.Now disability retired & residing near the ocean in her beloved Rhode Island, Susi is a recognized professional fine artist-author and is finishing another book on womens' issues and relationships.

Customer Reviews

Heart Gripping!!!
I can't help but be in total awe of Susi Franco, not just for her perceptions gained as an RN but also for her sheer will & determination to overcome the major adversities she has faced: an abusive relationship, single mother of 6 children, her own physical disability as well as her one daughter.
The writings in this book are visceral & one cannot help but feel the white-knuckle ride of the roller coaster as they read. Sometimes laughing out loud at the vignettes penned in "A Nurses' Thoughts, A Typical Day", reeling anger from "HM Moans" and total devastation with "A Nurses'Child".
This book took me two days to get through. I couldn't quit reading.
The author mourns that as a nurse, daughter and mother that she has sometimes failed to "save them" from their peril. On the contrary - as you will read, Franco has done anything but fail her patients & loved ones.
Utilizing her knowledge, skills, experiences & true compassion as a nurse, sister, daughter, mother, patient...Susi Franco gives all she can give & when that has become exhausted, she has the grace to lay it before her higher power with faith & courage that in that prayer...the right thing will be done.
Highly recommended reading for all walks - you won't be disappointed and it will grip your heart.

Angel's with Stethoscopes is a treasure
When Susi Franco left her husband, she and her six children immediately fled to the safety of my home. After we had bedded down our combination of nine children, Susi told me of her plan to fulfill her lifetime ambition - to take her family to West VA and attend nursing school. She faced tough obstacles along the way, but she triumphed with confidence and grace.
Angels with Stethoscopes is a powerful nonfiction work that follows Susi's journey and her observations of the ongoing challenges of a registered nurse. Her inspirational stories are engaging, sad, honest and uplifting. The reader is empathetically drawn into the sweetness of the elderly gentleman's playful flirting, the heartbreaking redolent death watch over the young accident victim who succumbs to his injuries, and the dark paradox of her own daughter's near fatal accident, when Susi experienced both the reassuring familiarity of her own turf (the hospital ER), while at the same time being rendered helpless as a parent. All of this is delicately and honestly portrayed in true Dickensian fashion with her beautiful prose,humor and poetic touch.

In Angels with Stethoscopes, Susi Franco is truly the angel. By tracing her feelings as a competent and compassionate professional nurse, Susi demonstrates not only the spirit of the nursing profession but the strength and beauty of her own true spirit as well. It is a lyrical, poetic and a meaningful story; I highly recommend it!

wonderfully accurate and telling book
this book is short ,easy to read and well worth the effort .this was my firsy book of t his author it is well done and very poignant .