Review by Choice Review
This robustly written book will resonate with professional nurses. Todaro-Franceschi (City Univ. of New York) describes her personal experience of disillusionment with nursing during her 30-year career. She was tired of going to work, tired of pompous physicians, tired of being "talked down to," and tired of being automated and less humane in her work. Here she writes about reconnecting with the meaning and purpose of professional nursing and about thriving with quality care rather than lingering in mediocre care. Burnout, reality shock, and compassion fatigue are ideas discussed from the early 1970s (Reality Shock by Marlene Kramer, 1974) through the 1990s (Carla Joinson, "Coping with Compassion Fatigue," Nursing 22 [1992]: 116-121). The terms refer to the heavy-hearted, heartless, and disheartened nurses who feel discontent from their work. Nursing authors in the past 40 years have prescribed antidotes via caring, purposeful change, transformation, and presence, but the problem remains. Todaro-Franceschi analyzes the complexity of interlocking variables that have led to the "epidemic of burnout" and offers support for nurses to find their lost purpose in nursing. She includes a list of resources for managing compassion fatigue, burnout, secondary trauma, bullying, and moral distress. An excellent resource for all levels of nurses. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All nursing students, researchers/faculty, and professionals/practitioners. D. B. Hamilton emerita, Western Michigan University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
