Nurse Biography

Liverpool, 1955. With her abusive husband drinking all her wages, Alice faces a daily struggle to provide for her family. Her eldest daughter, Cathy, has always longed to be a nurse, but when poverty means she’s forced to leave school and get a job it looks like her dreams are over. But Cathy isn’t willing to give up, and with the support of old friend - and new love - Gianni, she manages to secure a place as a cadet nurse. Now, though, her mam must stand up to her violent husband alone - and with less money coming in, Alice will be in danger of losing everything.

In a book as eye-opening as it is riveting, practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day in a hospital's cancer ward. In the span of 12 hours, lives can be lost, life-altering medical treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen.

Bullied, overlooked and under-appreciated, Lissa McColl learns at an early age to do very bad things. As a nurse, she is respected and valued for the first time in her life. But Lissa hates her job and the selfish, rude and inconsiderate people she has to deal with. But being underestimated in this job had its advantages. Lissa can get close to people, find out their secrets… sometimes with deadly results.

Lucy Letby seemed like a totally ordinary young woman: fun-loving and popular. She had a happy childhood with devoted parents, and after university she landed her dream job as a nurse looking after sick babies. She even became a poster girl for the hospital where she worked. And yet today, Lucy Letby is officially the most prolific child killer of the modern era. Following one of the longest murder trials in British legal history, she's been convicted of murdering seven babies, and attempting to murder seven others.

In the early hours of March 2015, the police receive a call from a nurse at a provincial Danish hospital. She suspects her colleague is deliberately killing patients and fears that it has just happened again. Soon, several witnesses reveal that they too suspect the same nurse of poisoning patients; some have been harbouring their suspicion for years... so why has no one done anything about it before? And now that those patients’ bodies have long been cremated, where is the evidence? To this day, the nurse, Christina Aistrup Hansen, maintains her innocence.

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed 'The Angel of Death' by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favourite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In 1943, Kathleen, then thirty, was a nurse-in-training at the Blackburn Royal Infirmary. For the next three years, she kept a meticulous diary of her day-to-day existence, leaving behind a vivid record of the real-time concerns of a busy, thoughtful woman on the frontline of the war at home. Kathleen’s days were never the same. She writes in clear and lively prose about life in the hospital: of her fellow nurses, her patients, about death and dying, and the progress of the war as wounded soldiers returned from Normandy in the summer of 1944.

New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nurse shortage. So begins the remarkable true story of the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis, one of the world's deadliest plagues, told alongside the often strange chronicle of the cure's discovery. Spanning the Great Depression and moving through World War II and beyond, this story follows the intrepid young women, the 'Black Angels', who, for twenty years, risked their lives working under dreadful conditions while caring for the city's poorest.

From the people who brought you the bestselling Confessions of a GP. From stampeding nudes to inebriated teenagers, young nurse Michael Alexander never really knew what he was getting himself into.

What is the price of honor? It took 10 years for Vietnam War Nurse Diane Carlson Evans to answer that question - and the answer was a heavy one.

Around the clock, ER nurses dedicate their lives to helping us when we need it most. This book puts names and faces to these men and women who are there for us whenever we need them, who fight for our lives and never give up.

Lynda Van Devanter was the girl next door, the cheerleader who went to Catholic schools, enjoyed sports, and got along well with her four sisters and parents. After high school she attended nursing school and then did something that would shatter her secure world for the rest of her life: in 1969, she joined the army and was shipped to Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam her idealistic view of the war vanished quickly. She worked long hours in cramped, ill-equipped, understaffed operating rooms. She saw friends die.

When 18-year-old Mary Hazard touched down in postwar Putney to begin her nurse's training, she could never have known that it was the beginning of a colourful career that would still be going 60 years later - one of the longest-ever serving NHS nurses. For Mary, raised in a strict convent in rural south Ireland, working in her first London hospital was a shocking and life-changing experience. Against a backdrop of ongoing rationing and poverty, she saw for the first time the horrors of disease...

Working in A&E is a challenging job, but nurse Louise Curtis loves it. She was newly qualified as an advanced clinical practitioner, responsible for life or death decisions about the patients she saw, when the unthinkable happened and the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. The stress on the NHS was huge and for the first time in her life, the job was going to take a toll on Louise herself.

To a young girl, the life of a student nurse sounds exciting, but with long hours and short shrift it's never easy. So when Maggie Groff embarks as a student nurse at London's King's College Hospital, she must quickly get to grips with the demands of her chosen career. It's sink or swim. In a delightful romp through time, played out against the march of feminism and the fashion, music and movies of almost half a century ago, we follow Maggie's highs and lows as, with trial and much error, she becomes a highly skilled nurse and sets sail for a new life in Australia.

In these stories, Dr Jim Down brings us to the very heart of the intensive care unit - the section of the hospital where the sickest patients are brought to be cared for until their condition improves. With honesty, humility and a streak of dark humour, Dr Down describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU, a place which sits at the cutting edge of medical technology and where a split-second decision can make the difference between life and death.

Army combat veteran and registered nurse Erin Olszewski's most deeply held values were put to the test when she arrived as a travel nurse at Elmhurst Hospital in the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. After serving in Iraq, she was back on the front lines - and this time, she found, the situation was even worse. Rooms were filthy, nurses were lax with sanitation measures, and hospital-acquired cases of COVID-19 were spreading like wildfire.

Christie Watson was a nurse for 20 years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astonishing account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion and kindness. We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient's agonising heart-lung transplant and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.

From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world's most renowned children's hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it. Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.

Every weekend, in Holland’s most popular newspaper, de Volkskrant, renowned science-journalist Ellen de Visser asks a different medical professional to tell her about ‘that one patient’; the patient who changed everything for them. Every day, in every country, thousands of patients share their stories with their doctors: stories they may never have told anyone else; stories that are heartbreaking, sometimes funny and - just occasionally - unforgettable.