Author: Marianna Crane

After a long career in nursing--I was one of the first certified gerontological nurse practitioners--I am now a writer. My writings center around patients I have had over the years that continue to haunt my memory unless I record their stories. In addition, I write about growing older, confronting ageism, creativity and food.
My memoir, "Stories from the Tenth Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner Remembers" is available where ever books are sold.

THE WEIRDEST HOME VISIT

When I worked in the home care program at a VA hospital in Illinois, medical students sometimes came along with us nurse practitioners while we made our visits. I enjoyed showing them the reality of delivering care in the patient’s home—where we were guests—the subtle line between suggestion and decree, education and instruction, doing for…… Continue reading THE WEIRDEST HOME VISIT

SELECTIVE STUBBORNESS

The first chapter of my book opens with my grandmother telling me in her fractured English I shouldn’t be a nurse. Her garlicky breath still resonates in my olfactory recollection. This chapter has been critiqued once in a master class at an annual writer’s conference and work-shopped at least twice in writing groups. So when…… Continue reading SELECTIVE STUBBORNESS

THE AGONY OF EDITING

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be doing edits to my manuscript—finally. Especially after spending years writing and rewriting and changing and revising, making chapter four chapter one and later dropping chapter one altogether and replacing it with what was once chapter one in 2006. So clearly I’m in the home stretch. However, I…… Continue reading THE AGONY OF EDITING

NURSES REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Betsy, a writer friend, emailed me the story she had read in our workshop since I had to miss the class. She knows I hang on every episode of her life in Ireland where her second child was born and she negotiated the daily vicissitudes of a different culture. In this episode she had left…… Continue reading NURSES REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE

BE GOOD TO YOUR READER

I took Stein with me to Monkey Joe’s and settled into a black leather vibrating chair in an area devoted to parents, grandparents and other responsible adults while the men’s semi-finals at Wimbledon played on one TV screen and some guys tossed a basketball on the other. My three grandsons scampered towards the inflated jumpy…… Continue reading BE GOOD TO YOUR READER

MY FAVORITE BOOKS ON WRITING

I go back every once in a while and reread the books that have always rewarded me with inspiration and encouragement. Especially now as I’m completing my book and can almost see a glimmer of light flickering at the end of the tunnel, I find I need that boost, the reassurance my work is not…… Continue reading MY FAVORITE BOOKS ON WRITING

DEMISE OF THE PHYSICAL

Back in the early ‘80s when I ran a not-for-profit clinic on the west side of Chicago for older people before annual physicals were considered “nonspecific” or “inefficient” or “potentially harmful” [“Let’s (Not) Get Physicals” (Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times, June 3, 2012)] I did a complete head to toe exam on each patient who registered, including vaginal…… Continue reading DEMISE OF THE PHYSICAL