R.N.: The Commitment, the Heartache, and the Courage of Three Dedicated Nurses

A look at the nursing profession examines the lives of three nurses at different stages in their careers--from the forty-year-old veteran with an extensive re+a7sume+a7 to the newcomer--describing their daily responsibilities, hospital bureaucracy, medical procedures, and more.

Writing of an anonymous teaching hospital in Boston, here called Memorial, Carpineto, a former social worker at the institution, follows three pseudonymous nurses on their rounds: Jessie Concannon, an unmarried 34-year-old nurse-manager in the surgical oncology unit; 24-year-old oncology-hematology staff nurse Dominique Raza, also single; and Gina Rossi, a 41-year-old grandmother and critical nurse specialist who teaches in the surgical intensive care unit when she is not lecturing around the country and filling other PR functions for Memorial. Although Carpineto, too, serves as publicist for the nursing profession in this book, she nevertheless provides an instructive appreciation of the difficulties and satisfactions of the field. Memorial has adopted the corporate model and functions like a business firm, shows Carpineto, giving nurses less time to perform the caregiving which attracted them to the profession, with frequent management meetings, record-keeping and fiscal accountability the priorities. Of the three practitioners we observe, Concannon has left nursing to study psychotherapy, Raza waffles about continuing and only Rossi, the hospital's celebrity nurse, is content. Their situations, suggests Carpineto may be emblematic of the profession. as a whole.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The changing face of nursing--revealed through relatively lackluster portraits of three working nurses. To predict the present status of a field that has long struggled for true professional standing, Carpineto, a psychotherapist, has selected the pseudonymous ``Dominique,'' a young staff nurse; ``Jessie,'' an experienced nurse manager; and ``Gina,'' a high-tech clinical nurse specialist. All three are employees of the same unnamed Boston hospital, although they have little or no interaction with each other. Carpineto spent several months following the three around, observing the dynamics of their relations with patients, physicians, nurses, and other staff, and interviewing their colleagues. Although she focuses on the nurses' work lives, the author also provides details of their family backgrounds, childhoods, and personal lives in an attempt to make the women come alive. Unfortunately, what she does not do very well is get inside the characters of her subjects, who remain flat on the page. Carpineto's frequent glowing descriptions of the nurses and her inclusion of copious complimentary quotes from their colleagues (about Jessie, for example, one co-worker says: ``She's such a happy person, so thoroughly knowledgeable about oncology'') create the impression that the author is reluctant to see her subjects as less than ideal representatives of nursing. Similarly, her flattering references to the hospital leave the sense that she may have been anxious not to offend those who gave her access. Nevertheless, Carpineto does offer a picture of an occupation in crisis that gives food for thought to anyone contemplating nursing as a career. The frustrations and drudgery of the job are made evident--as are the new opportunities created by advances in health-care technology. Despite its subtitle, not a gripping story of heartache and courage, but a fitfully informative look at where nursing stands today. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The caring and professionalism shared by three nurses--a manager, a newcomer, and an experienced nurse--are the focus of Carpineto's book. While the concept is commendable, the execution is uneven and disappointing. Written in present tense, R.N. at times reads like a cross between Sue Barton and the Cosmo girl, as in, "Dominique is highly selective about her men. They have to meet her standards of comportment and share at least some of her desire to make the world a better place." Authentic insights into nursing practice are woven throughout, but readers looking for an answer to, "what is it like to be a nurse today?" are better served by Echo Heron's Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse (Atheneum, 1987). Not recommended.
- Anne C. Tomlin, Auburn Memorial Hosp. Lib., N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.