Karon White Gibson always knew she'd write a book. She kept notes throughout nursing school because, she said, "I was dealing with everybody from the richest people to the poorest people in every kind of situation."

What she didn't know was that the book would be her favorite genre: Not exactly Horatio Alger, but a success story nonetheless. Nurses on Our Own, recounts the 1973 birth of AmericaNurse, one of the first independent nursing businesses in the country and the phenomenon behind Gibson's meteoric career that combines nursing and media.

Gibson and a partner founded AmericaNurse as a supplement to physicians, handling dressing changes, injections and the like while saving patients the time and expense of a physician visit.

The company flourished into a multifaceted enterprise, adding home health services and providing first aid on location for movie and television productions.

An opportunity to do a weekly five-minute "health break" for television in 1982 quickly grew to 10-minute spots. "When it got to 15, I said I'd like to interview experts and guests," Gibson said, and soon she had a half-hour show.

Today she hosts four Chicago-based health shows distributed via a cable network to audiences in Illinois, Wisconsin and Florida. And she dreams of syndication.

"I can reach more patients now over the airwaves with my information than I could ever before," Gibson said. "I feel like I'm a hospital without walls."

One show is credited with saving the life of a viewer. The guest that day was a cardiologist who described symptoms the viewer recognized. "He went directly to the hospital and asked for the doctor who was on the show with me," Gibson said. "He had a cardiac arrest at the hospital and they saved him."

Gibson's message in focusing on traditional, alternative and optional health care may be less dramatic, but is no less powerful.

She credits her start in psychiatric nursing for the interview skills she uses so deftly on camera and the people skills that grew AmericaNurse. For her staff, Gibson wooed RNs who had left nursing back into what she describes as "the biggest, diversified career you can choose."

"I offered them educational training. I offered them self-confidence and self-esteem and even uniform fashion shows," she said.

"But mainly, I think the thing that I offered them was hours. I would go out of my way to schedule hours that would fit in with their home life."

About RNs in general, she said: "People need to know how educated nurses are. They need to know that they're really coming from knowledge and are not just task-oriented. I think for too long nurses were held back, afraid to say, 'Take an aspirin.' There is no security in not speaking out."