E.R. Nurses: True Stories from America’s Greatest Unsung Heroes

E.R. Nurses: True Stories from America’s Greatest Unsung Heroes by James Pattersong and Matt Eversmann, Little, Brown & Company, 2021l

I bought E.R. Nurses: True Stories from America’s Greatest Unsung Heroes at my local independent bookstore. The book isn’t an easy read. I wanted to skip over the tales that involved babies and children. But I didn’t. I honor each author’s experience because he/she is willing to share these stories with me and expose their vulnerabilities. 

Real nurses write real stories about what they do on “routine” days. The stories are mostly short, from two to seven pages. Most of them twist my gut and bring me close to tears. The stories are a testimony to what nurses must overcome to help their patients. 

E.R Nurses. is a bare bones book. No preface, foreword, introduction or prologue. Just chapter after chapter of unforgettable nursing stories written by unforgettable nurses. 

That’s all that is needed. 

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James Patterson has been criticized for co-authoring many of his books and for being more of a brand that focuses on making money than an artist who focuses on his craft.

He has had more than 114 New York Times bestselling novels and holds The New York Times record for most #1 New York Times bestsellers by a single author, a total of 67, which is also a Guinness World Record. 

His books have sold approximately 305 million copies worldwide. (Wikipedia)

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I’m happy that James Patterson has authored E.R. Nurses. His reputation as a best-selling author all but guarantees that a wide audience will learn what nurses really do. 

Book review: Rewarding, heartbreaking stories of E.R. nurses

Mims Cushing

For the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union USA TODAY NETWORK

October 24, 2021

We clapped for them, we cheered for them, we banged pots and pans for them, we cried happy tears and sad. And now we can read about them. They were the first responders during COVID-19. But much of this book does not deal with the nurses who dealt with that. It’s about the nurses who go about their job as emergency nurses. They too deserve clapping. And the authors have dealt with, perhaps 100, day shift, night shift and flight nurses.

James Patterson and Matt Eversmann have come up with a book about the lives of hard-working men and women who work in emergency rooms in the United States. The authors have captured the essence and drama of their stories.

The nurses’ stories are sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes frightening, but all offer a close-up view as to what it takes to be a nurse. The night shifts are particularly difficult, even hard to read about.

Of course the outcomes are often painful, especially when children have to see their father or mother slowly ebb away. The nurses take solace in the fact that sometimes something wonderful happens as when a father takes off his rosary and places it around his son’s neck before being wheeled off to surgery. A nurse suggested that he do that. A few days later, the father dies, but his son will always remember that gesture.

It’s particularly frustrating when a patient is being particularly difficult when a nurse has just seen something tragic. A 7-year-old had fallen out of treehouse and was in cardiac arrest and the nurses worked on him for 54 minutes — as someone else made a petty request. During one night shift, a nurse is nearly strangled, with a choke hold by a severely mentally ill man.

No two days are the same. “Sometimes [one of the teaching nurses tells new nurses], “you get to be a part of a miracle. Other times no matter how well you do your job, it just doesn’t work out. People are going to live, and people are going to die. You have no control. You just do your job.”

One of the nurses wishes that people impatiently waiting for help in an ER would realize that, if they are not being treated, it means someone else is in worse condition than they are: “If we don’t get to you right away, it means you’re stable. If you’re waiting, that’s a good thing. It’s when we all rush in and jump on you that you should worry.”

Give this book to someone who is thinking of being a nurse or is one already. Read it yourself and bang pots and pans all over again, in your heart.

Mims Cushing lives in Ponte Vedra Beach and has written three books.