Theresa Morris is Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University, where she teaches courses on Organizations, Gender, Reproduction, and Research Methods.She is the author of Cut It Out: The Cesarean Section Epidemic in America (NYU Press, 2013).

Morris's detailed focus on hardworking individuals at one hospital shows in microcosm the difficult strains that plague our health care system writ large; as such, this book stands as a cautionary tale. (Choice) Theresa Morris embeds herself with one hospital's nurses to witness firsthand how financial pressures on the institution impact patients at a particularly vulnerable moment in their lives: when they are giving birth. The news isn't good. Nurses are key here, and policy is driving them away from giving good patient care, in the delivery room and beyond. Healthcare in Crisis is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how our health system is failing patients, especially women and babies. Too often nurses have been left out of the conversation. Morris puts them in the center. - Jennifer Block, Author of Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care Theresa Morris's Health Care in Crisis offers an engaging treatment of organizational change. Using a community hospital as her focus, and the Affordable Care Act as the catalyst, she examines the ways in which institutional responses affect the nurse-patient relationship. Studying a maternity unit, and paying particular attention to care delivery, the author demonstrates that the ways in which health care systems are financed really matters. - Beth Mintz, Author of Lesbians in Academia: Degrees of Freedom In this compelling in-depth ethnography, Morris captures what its like to work as a labor and delivery nurse at a public community hospital in uncertain times. The administrators, reeling from the effects of some penalizing policies of the Affordable Care Act, seek a corporate buyer to relieve the hospitals economic distress. Morris illustrates how interlocking changes in finances and policies result in overworked nurses and negatively impact the care of women and babies. Healthcare in Crisis clearly documents the need for a single-payer system that values patient-centered medical service providers. - Wendy Simonds, Author of Hospital Land USA: Sociological Adventures in Medicalization Theresa Morris offers a careful analysis of how the intimate interaction between nurse and patient is embedded in the social dynamics of the workplace, in the occasionally tense relations of authority between professions, in the hospital's budgetary constraints, and in the uncertainties of federal and state healthcare policy in the last decade. Morris' thoroughly detailed and highly readable ethnography provides a vivid account of how these forces shape nurses' work lives, with broad political and economic turmoil percolating down to the front lines of patient care. (Social Forces) Health Care in Crisis offers a significant contribution to the sociology of public policy, medicine and health, organizations, and workplaces. It also represents a compelling investigation of uncertainty and unintended consequences. Highly readable and engaging, the book is well suited for adoption in undergraduate and graduate courses on medical sociology, work, social problems, and qualitative methods. (American Journal of Sociology)

Theresa Morris is Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University, where she teaches courses on Organizations, Gender, Reproduction, and Research Methods.She is the author of Cut It Out: The Cesarean Section Epidemic in America (NYU Press, 2013).

Morris's detailed focus on hardworking individuals at one hospital shows in microcosm the difficult strains that plague our health care system writ large; as such, this book stands as a cautionary tale. (Choice) Theresa Morris embeds herself with one hospital's nurses to witness firsthand how financial pressures on the institution impact patients at a particularly vulnerable moment in their lives: when they are giving birth. The news isn't good. Nurses are key here, and policy is driving them away from giving good patient care, in the delivery room and beyond. Healthcare in Crisis is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how our health system is failing patients, especially women and babies. Too often nurses have been left out of the conversation. Morris puts them in the center. - Jennifer Block, Author of Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care Theresa Morris's Health Care in Crisis offers an engaging treatment of organizational change. Using a community hospital as her focus, and the Affordable Care Act as the catalyst, she examines the ways in which institutional responses affect the nurse-patient relationship. Studying a maternity unit, and paying particular attention to care delivery, the author demonstrates that the ways in which health care systems are financed really matters. - Beth Mintz, Author of Lesbians in Academia: Degrees of Freedom In this compelling in-depth ethnography, Morris captures what its like to work as a labor and delivery nurse at a public community hospital in uncertain times. The administrators, reeling from the effects of some penalizing policies of the Affordable Care Act, seek a corporate buyer to relieve the hospitals economic distress. Morris illustrates how interlocking changes in finances and policies result in overworked nurses and negatively impact the care of women and babies. Healthcare in Crisis clearly documents the need for a single-payer system that values patient-centered medical service providers. - Wendy Simonds, Author of Hospital Land USA: Sociological Adventures in Medicalization Theresa Morris offers a careful analysis of how the intimate interaction between nurse and patient is embedded in the social dynamics of the workplace, in the occasionally tense relations of authority between professions, in the hospital's budgetary constraints, and in the uncertainties of federal and state healthcare policy in the last decade. Morris' thoroughly detailed and highly readable ethnography provides a vivid account of how these forces shape nurses' work lives, with broad political and economic turmoil percolating down to the front lines of patient care. (Social Forces) Health Care in Crisis offers a significant contribution to the sociology of public policy, medicine and health, organizations, and workplaces. It also represents a compelling investigation of uncertainty and unintended consequences. Highly readable and engaging, the book is well suited for adoption in undergraduate and graduate courses on medical sociology, work, social problems, and qualitative methods. (American Journal of Sociology)

Theresa Morris is Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University, where she teaches courses on Organizations, Gender, Reproduction, and Research Methods.She is the author of Cut It Out: The Cesarean Section Epidemic in America (NYU Press, 2013).

Morris's detailed focus on hardworking individuals at one hospital shows in microcosm the difficult strains that plague our health care system writ large; as such, this book stands as a cautionary tale. (Choice) Theresa Morris embeds herself with one hospital's nurses to witness firsthand how financial pressures on the institution impact patients at a particularly vulnerable moment in their lives: when they are giving birth. The news isn't good. Nurses are key here, and policy is driving them away from giving good patient care, in the delivery room and beyond. Healthcare in Crisis is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how our health system is failing patients, especially women and babies. Too often nurses have been left out of the conversation. Morris puts them in the center. - Jennifer Block, Author of Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care Theresa Morris's Health Care in Crisis offers an engaging treatment of organizational change. Using a community hospital as her focus, and the Affordable Care Act as the catalyst, she examines the ways in which institutional responses affect the nurse-patient relationship. Studying a maternity unit, and paying particular attention to care delivery, the author demonstrates that the ways in which health care systems are financed really matters. - Beth Mintz, Author of Lesbians in Academia: Degrees of Freedom In this compelling in-depth ethnography, Morris captures what its like to work as a labor and delivery nurse at a public community hospital in uncertain times. The administrators, reeling from the effects of some penalizing policies of the Affordable Care Act, seek a corporate buyer to relieve the hospitals economic distress. Morris illustrates how interlocking changes in finances and policies result in overworked nurses and negatively impact the care of women and babies. Healthcare in Crisis clearly documents the need for a single-payer system that values patient-centered medical service providers. - Wendy Simonds, Author of Hospital Land USA: Sociological Adventures in Medicalization Theresa Morris offers a careful analysis of how the intimate interaction between nurse and patient is embedded in the social dynamics of the workplace, in the occasionally tense relations of authority between professions, in the hospital's budgetary constraints, and in the uncertainties of federal and state healthcare policy in the last decade. Morris' thoroughly detailed and highly readable ethnography provides a vivid account of how these forces shape nurses' work lives, with broad political and economic turmoil percolating down to the front lines of patient care. (Social Forces) Health Care in Crisis offers a significant contribution to the sociology of public policy, medicine and health, organizations, and workplaces. It also represents a compelling investigation of uncertainty and unintended consequences. Highly readable and engaging, the book is well suited for adoption in undergraduate and graduate courses on medical sociology, work, social problems, and qualitative methods. (American Journal of Sociology)