The First Year

THE FIRST YEAR: Conversations with a New ICU Nurse follows a newly hired nurse through his first year of practice in a metropolitan hospital. Through nine in-depth interviews, author Kay Zincus has the new nurse describe what he does to care for acutely ill patients, work with families, cultivate effective relationships with physicians and nurses, and grapple with the inevitable ethical issues that are part of the life and death situations in intensive care situations. Frank and reflective, this book offers new and future healthcare workers and their friends and families a rare window of insight into the challenging transition from nursing school to real-life nursing practice. It reminds educators of the big leap students must make from nursing school to effective nursing practice. And it offers insights to consumers of healthcare about the shortage of nurses affecting many hospitals. A troubling question emerges how will we have an adequate supply of well-trained, acute-care nurses when so many leave in their early years of practice?