Angels With Stethoscopes

Prior to becoming an Artist, Susi's work as an RN in ICU and ER for over 22 years was life-altering. This book is a poignant journalling of her Nursing career. Although available at major online book retailers, Susi wanted to include her books here along with her artwork, each an important component from her life-long body of work.
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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.

REVIEWS

Reviewed by Marcy Burns for Reader Views- (11/06) This amazing book will touch the reader's heart, sometimes near to breaking. Have you ever wondered how nurses cope day after day with the pain that their patients endure? They can provide the most competent care, but still many of their patients will suffer and some will die. They can do what they must do with steely discipline, and they can resolve to be indifferent. Still, the best of them, those who are "Angels with Stethoscopes" remain compassionate and caring and inevitably they, too, suffer.

Susi Franco is surely among the best. Her poetry, in an astonishingly effective mix with prose, at times is a lament, at times a tender love song, and at times a despairing wail. The words grab you and take you into the dreaded world of dying and death. They do not spare the horrors and the ugliness, the blood and panic and fear, but they speak, too, of hope and healing and understanding.

When her own daughter is gravely injured, Susi Franco at once knows too much and can do too little. She navigates the impossible path of "Mother who is a nurse" sometimes with courage and sometimes with helpless grief. She does not spare herself in the words that take you along on that journey.

This is a remarkable, beautifully written book. It's impact on the reader cannot be captured in any single excerpt... It is that tender and loving. "Angels with Stethoscopes" is a book for anyone, everyone. Read it. You will be richer."
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"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." ( Renee Kennedy RN, British Columbia, Ca)