Read the full review at: http://www.nursingcenter.com/library/JournalArticle.asp?Article_ID=1020146 

To get a PDF copy of this review, visit: http://www.nursingcenter.com/pdf.asp?AID=1020146

http://www.epageflip.net/issue/11662/20

Amy Glenn Vega, in her book Lions and Tigers and Nurses, makes me recall that I was at one time the beginner. I did not know the ropes. I was afraid to say anything. I am a Medical Librarian and reading Amy’s book makes me think about how I treat my patrons. 

I will never forget my first medical question back in 1980 (before all this online stuff—I didn’t even have a computer!!) The hospital administrator was asking for information about a “neonate.”  Don’t laugh, I did not have a health care background and I had never heard of a neonate! I looked in all the science and chemistry books, thinking that a neonate was related to neons, protons, or something along those lines. After several hours of searching manually, I went to my Nursing Supervisor who told me that a neonate was a newborn baby, and she let me know in no uncertain terms that I had “a lot to learn.”  It was the first of many hard lessons. 

Lions and Tigers and Nurses helped me reflect on the way we treat each other. Yes, many of us have been in our professional roles for several years. Yes, there are many new people coming and going. They seem so young. Some are friendly and some aren’t.  But they all need patience, understanding and a helping hand.  They need someone to show them the ropes.  I am now aware that many of my library patrons do not know the language and the resources that I work with on a regular basis – OVID; Micromedex; MdConsult; OCLC; EBM; etc.  Now I am the one teaching a new language to new staff! 

Amy Vega’s Lions and Tigers and Nurses demonstrates the true spirit of cooperation, which is possible to achieve even after many difficulties in communication and misunderstandings have occurred. We have to talk with each other and not at each other. This book has been very popular in my little library and I am glad that so many nurses had found it so very useful. Yes, we have a library!!! 

Michael Wold, MLS
OSF St. Mary Medical Center
Galesburg, Illinois

I had seen an advertisement for Nursing Novellas: books that promised to not only give educational credit, but provide a new, fun way to review professional issues.

Once I started with each of the two Novellas, I could not stop the reading. I found myself remembering similar issues that I had dealt with throughout my career. I could place myself as each of the characters at times, and found that they sometimes had experiences similar to my own.

The vast experiences in a nursing career give you joys and sorrows beyond measure. After completing and sending in for education credit, I could not get the books off my mind. I saw them as a future “pearl in the sand” and envisioned using them as a teaching resource. At Richmond Community College in Hamlet NC, I am priviledged to be a part of the Faculty of the Medical Assistant Program. We teach a specific course in professionalism, and boundaries we need to have with patients and families as well as in the work setting. In the Nursing Novellas series, I had found two new texts to use. Lions and Tigers and Nurses and Broken Heart will be our resource books for the Fall 2010 course.

What a wonderful way for me to remember the past, and a wonderful tool to teach rising health care professionals of the future. Special things come in small, precious packages sometimes.

Jeanne Ray Hardee
Richmond Community College
Hamlet, NC

Mary E. Holtschneider, RN, BSN, BC, MPA, NREMT-P

Amy Glenn Vega’s two nursing novellas, “Lions and Tiger and Nurses” and “Broken Heart”, take us through the lives of nurses at the fictional North Carolina Dogwood Regional Medical Center, Med Surg South nursing unit.  Each of the nurses is at a different point in his or her career, which Vega so aptly captures as the stories unfold.

Donna, the nurse manager, struggles with how to most effectively bring out the best in her staff, while at the same time worries about her children, one of whom is in prison.  Miriam, the most experienced staff nurse on Med Surg South, engages in the practice of “eating the young” nurses on the unit, in this case new graduate Haylie.  Haylie is not only young in the nursing profession but also in age, and struggles to fit in to the unit as well as into the adult world.  Mel, a divorced middle age Filipino nurse who was once married to a well-off lawyer, is really brought to life in “Broken Heart” as she confronts her emotions regarding her divorce, her daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, and a special patient for whom she develops an unexpected love.  Brad, a relatively new nurse who served as a medic in the military, also is brought to life in “Broken Heart” as he confronts several different relationships, including a breakup with his girlfriend.

The theme of the first novella, “Lions and Tigers and Nurses” is the ongoing problem of lateral violence, often described as nurses eating their young.  Miriam is the main perpetrator on Med Surg South and when Donna assigns her to precept Haylie, she brings out all sorts of tactics to make Haylie feel incompetent and unwelcome.  All nurses will instantly recognize Miriam’s antics and will quickly think back to times that they have seen or experienced bullying behavior.  The reader still feels sympathy for Miriam, however, as her husband had recently suffered serious medical problems and eventually dies.  Miriam is burned out and highly stressed, and unfortunately finds it difficult to adequately handle these stressors in her life without making everyone around her miserable.

In this novella, Donna requires the group to attend a hospital educational program on lateral violence, which Haylie truly embraces.  The class teaches them to stand up to tactics of backstabbing, sabotage, infighting, and other negative behaviors by not accepting them as appropriate and fighting back.  Eventually Miriam and Haylie, through some emotional moments, come to realize that they indeed need each other and truly become colleagues, if not friends.  They literally and figuratively get on a roller coaster together and learn this important lesson, which concludes in some touching moments at the end.  The reader is left pondering whether it is Miriam who actually learns more from her relationship with Haylie than the other way around.

The second novella, “Broken Heart,” moves beyond the lateral violence theme of “Lions and Tigers and Nurses” and delves into the individual nurses’ lives even more.  Mel, the ultimate male basher since her husband left her for another woman several years prior, learns to trust and love again through a famous actor who becomes her patient.  Mel eventually loses her new love, but simultaneously gains a tremendous amount of personal growth from this important relationship.  Brad, struggling to commit to his longtime girlfriend Sue and then eventually losing her, finds other relationships that are not romantic in nature but very poignant.  The reader observes Brad maturing to a higher level in this novella that he otherwise might not have been able to achieve had he remained with his longtime girlfriend.  This novella focuses on grief and loss as each of the nurses experiences these emotions in different ways.

Neither novella is about medical problems or hospital issues, but about the lives and struggles that these nurses face both personally and professionally.  Vega, though not a nurse herself, captures the spirit of Med Surg South and all the emotions associated with it and the staff.  Non-nurses will enjoy the novellas as well as nurses, nursing students, and those close to nurses.  For those who have never personally experienced aspects of lateral violence, it will be not only educational but a bit disturbing to learn that such things can and do happen.  The general public consistently ranks nursing as the most trusted profession, but yet this internal abuse still abounds.  Nursing students in particular will appreciate how the story unfolds and can then hopefully choose to change this long-standing culture of abuse within the profession.

A bonus of the novellas is that the reader can get nursing continuing education credit by simply following the instructions in the back of the book.  There are good discussion questions that can be used for nursing school classes, journal clubs, self-reflection, or meetings.  This alternative means of education through novellas, rather than traditional lecture, is an innovative way to explore the concepts of lateral violence, grief, and loss.

Two issues that are major players in the nursing world are loss and grief and lateral violence (aka nurses eat their young). For new nurses, these can be problems that make or break a career. For those who are burned out and having trouble coping with caring for others, it can be a major turning point as well and not always for the best.

Author Amy Glenn Vega has provided two terrific nursing novellas to illustrate these issues and how one hospital core unit copes with them. Led by their nurse manager, Donna, the staff grows and learns together how to improve their own situations as individuals as well as how to come together as a TEAM and support each other.

Full review continues at The Nursing Site Blog

Awhile back I did a post on Amy Glenn Vega’s Nursing Novella titled Lions and Tigers and Nurses. You can find that post here. If you remember (or just read) I was a bit skeptical when first asked to be involved with these nursing novellas on my blog but then opened the press release and figured I’d give them a try. I’m glad I did. I received a copy of this first novella and was excited to read it. Unfortunately I haven’t had the proper time to sit down and review it properly on here. So here it is:

This story is a classic “nurses eat their young” story. The two main characters are Haylie, the new grad and Miriam, the preceptor. Haylie starts and Miriam immediately treats her like she knows nothing instead of taking her under her wing and teaching her how to be a great nurse.

Full review at Nighttimenursing