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By Anne
Federwisch, OTR Echo Heron, RN, is probably the last person who would compare herself with Florence Nightingale. In fact, in her nonfiction book Condition Critical: The Story of a Nurse Continues she writes, “Modern nursing in a sentence? — Florence doesn’t live here anymore.” But though the nursing profession has changed dramatically since the Crimean War of Nightingale’s time, both women have advanced nursing’s role, making it a more visible and viable profession. For Heron, a former critical care nurse, that advocacy has been through her writing and lecturing for the past 10 years. In her autobiographical nonfiction books as well as her fictional Mercy, Heron paints a picture of nursing not often seen in print—the overworked, underappreciated healer caught between politics and patient care. “Nurses are no longer the retiring, proper person who stands up when the doctor comes in the room and is absolutely terrified to stick her neck out,” said Heron. “Florence Nightingale was pretty advanced as far as nursing goes, but she still taught the subservient respect of the doctor and that we are only a small part of the team.” “Subservient” is not an adjective Heron uses in her portrayals of nurses. She describes Cat Richardson, Mercy’s heroine, as strong, capable, and bright. Yet Heron doesn’t glamorize nursing. Heroic incidents pepper the story line in Mercy, but the nitty-gritty details of personal care comprise the bulk of the nursing details. Her “telling it like it is” has not deterred many from the field, Heron said. “A lot of times, people who write me are people who are thinking about going into nursing and 99.9 percent of the time they say, ‘I read your book and I’m going to be a nurse because of it,’” she said. Nurses who have read her books thank her for portraying nursing accurately, she said. Heron’s first book, Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse, quickly rose to the top of the New York Times best seller list, an incredible affirmation for a first-time author. Yet she is not without her critics. She said that academics often criticize her for speaking too much about the politics of nursing when she is asked to speak to student groups. But she said that she feels compelled to deliver candid messages, whether it be fighting for adequate staffing ratios, or advocating nurses’ rights. She said that students respond positively to her messages. The nurse as a powerful patient advocate is seldom seen by the public, Heron said. “In fiction, in the media, you name it, nurses are not portrayed accurately,” she said. “We are still being portrayed as the big-busted, stupid women who just want to marry a doctor.” Currently, Heron is working on a medical mystery trilogy starring a critical care RN as an amateur sleuth. She has also written another nonfiction work, tentatively titled Tending Lives: Nurses on the Medical Front, to be published in June 1998. In it, she chronicles more than 40 stories of nurses across the country. In the chapter devoted to the story of her own last shift at the bedside, she starts with an apology to the nurses she left behind. “I realized that I could do more through my writing and my public speaking for patients and for nurses than I could at the bedside getting abused,” she said. |
