HEALING CANADIAN HEALTHCARE

A Canadian nurse with nearly 50 years’ experience sends out an alarm call to the general public about the future of her profession.

In this slim volume, Boucher gives readers a lot to unpack. She starts by briefly covering nurses’ duties (because, as she notes, “Even most colleagues I’ve talked to admitted that they didn’t fully understand what nurses do until they began their studies”) before describing various nursing specialties. She then turns to the profession’s benefits—competitive salaries, good benefits, and making a difference in people’s lives—as well as its challenges, including stress, and the fact that nursing shortages make everyone’s job more difficult. After briefly describing the education and training required, Boucher moves on to the most urgent issue for those on the job: avoiding burnout. One of the biggest problems that nurses face, she asserts, is the managerial practice of “floating,” in which they’re “moved from the departments they normally work in to an area that lacks adequate staff.” It can be demanding, and Boucher notes some simple ways to alleviate its difficulties, such as a uniform, hospital-wide color-coding system, so that every nurse knows what shelves contain which items in every department. The book finishes with a short chapter on what laypeople can do to help, and ends by challenging readers to “work together to elevate the nursing profession and cement its future.” All too often, when an expert writes about their work, the result is so dry or mired in jargon and technical detail that outsiders find it nearly impenetrable. However, Boucher’s prose is refreshingly engaging and thoughtful throughout. Her chapter on improving job retention particularly stands out; in it, she offers real-world examples of what has worked in real-world hospitals—the color-coding, for instance, in currently use in Ottawa—and then theorizes how ideas could go further and be more helpful. It quickly becomes evident that Boucher has thought about these issues in depth and that she cares for her fellow nurses deeply.

A compelling read that’s aimed at a Canadian audience but will draw in anyone with an interest in practical aspects of healthcare.