Vintage The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story

Great book! Took a while to be delivered although this could be due to Covid-19.

I'm the parent of a child with complex medical needs. She is severely disabled. Non verbal, non mobile, 100% tube fed and has epilepsy. Until 5 years ago I had very minimal experience of hospitals and nurses whereas now I can read medical notes and understand almost all of what is being discussed. It was great reading a book where I could see things from the other side of the hospital bed. We have become close over the years with some amazing nurses. Ones who will stay up late and chat with me in our cubicle. Ones who have taught me how to repass an NG tube, then a Gtube, then to being amazing at seeing a GJ button for the first time. I used to be so squeamish but now I think I would have been a great nurse. Nurses are amazing. They work tirelessly and this book shows not only how strained our nhs resources are, but how in spite of this the nurses persevere. It shows also the emotional side to it and the personal journey each nurse must go through. I was amused to learn about the author knowing which area a nurse worked in without knowing. I am familiar with this having encountered A&E nurses and all kinds. Thank you for writing this book. I suspect people who have not been exposed to the world of hospitals may be in for a bit of a shock and it would be great if more people could read it.

Supplementary/ reference material to textbook

Going by the title, I expected a sensitive portrayal of what the writer's experience- the human drama, as a nurse. Instead it is a series of medical reports, often with gruesome details , about what all she saw with the eyes of a novice. A waste of time.

Thanks

""The Language of Kindness" is a memoir of two decades of nursing by a British woman who has now turned to professional writing (as well she should, based on the ability demonstrated in this book). More than anything else, Ms. Watson's book is about love that cares: for her patients, their families, her colleagues, and her former profession. Highly anecdotal, escorting us from her fainting at the sight of her own blood while a student in phlebotomy, through her travels in pediatric wards (where some heartbreaking tableaux await), operating rooms, and other medical units, up to her own father's final days, when he receives hospice care from another superlative nurse. While Ms. Watson knows how to render a scene vividly, the book lacks the straight through-line that I appreciate in the works of Atul Gawande. Thus, when she digresses to the history of nursing and its scholarly investigation, the result is just that: digressive. The distance the reader must leap from some chapters to others can also distract. That said, there's no denying this book's power and importance. Like Gawande, Watson helps us to understand and better to appreciate not merely the science but the heart of medicine, practiced by fallible humans who daily perform acts of extraordinary kindness.