Jeanne Bryner – författare

“I approached the study of historical and contemporary nurses with my sleeves rolled up, pencil sharpened, and camera loaded. What draws a person to those who are ill and keeps us at the bedside? Every question I asked the nurses, I asked myself. Heart first, I plunged into stories about historical nurses whose names I had never heard. Somehow, they chose me as the vehicle for retelling their remarkable story. As I conducted interview after interview, I found threads of sameness in the the lives of my nurses. In childhood, illness and often death was a member of their family. They had strong female role models in their homes. They were independent thinkers and firm decision makers who were not afraid of change and saying the truth about mistakes in their lives. They had spiritual convictions about a well-lived life and made no-never-mind to passing from this world to the next. I listened carefully. Tenderly Lift Me barely scratches the surface of who they are and what they have done for humanity.”—Jeanne Bryner

Those who teach the literature of medicine have questioned why there is a lack of rich materials that connects nursing and the humanities. Author and poet Jeanne Bryner has gathered biographical sketches of remarkable nurses, each accompanied by poetry and photographs, and has created the multigenre presentation that is the compassionate and complex Tenderly Lift Me.

This is the first book in the Literature and Medicine Series that concentrates on nurses’ voices and their experiences with providing health care. It enhances and extends perspectives on how health care is understood and delivered by recognizing nurses as the primary care givers.

“I approached the study of historical and contemporary nurses with my sleeves rolled up, pencil sharpened, and camera loaded. What draws a person to those who are ill and keeps us at the bedside? Every question I asked the nurses, I asked myself. Heart first, I plunged into stories about historical nurses whose names I had never heard. Somehow, they chose me as the vehicle for retelling their remarkable story. As I conducted interview after interview, I found threads of sameness in the the lives of my nurses. In childhood, illness and often death was a member of their family. They had strong female role models in their homes. They were independent thinkers and firm decision makers who were not afraid of change and saying the truth about mistakes in their lives. They had spiritual convictions about a well-lived life and made no-never-mind to passing from this world to the next. I listened carefully. Tenderly Lift Me barely scratches the surface of who they are and what they have done for humanity.”—Jeanne Bryner

Those who teach the literature of medicine have questioned why there is a lack of rich materials that connects nursing and the humanities. Author and poet Jeanne Bryner has gathered biographical sketches of remarkable nurses, each accompanied by poetry and photographs, and has created the multigenre presentation that is the compassionate and complex Tenderly Lift Me.

This is the first book in the Literature and Medicine Series that concentrates on nurses’ voices and their experiences with providing health care. It enhances and extends perspectives on how health care is understood and delivered by recognizing nurses as the primary care givers.

What is it like to be a student nurse? What are the joys, the stresses, the transcendent moments, the fall-off-your-bed- laughing moments, and the terrors that have to be faced and stared down? And how might nurses, looking back, relate these experiences in ways that bring these memories to life again and provide historical context for how nursing education has changed and yet remained the same?

In brave, revealing, and often humorous poetry and prose, Learning to Heal explores these questions with contributions by nurses from a variety of social, ethnic, and geographical backgrounds. Readers meet a black nursing student who is surrounded by white teachers and patients in 1940, a mother who rises every morning at 5 A.M. to help her family ready for their day before she herself heads to anatomy class, and an itinerant Jewish teenager whois asked, "What will you become?" These individuals, and many other women and men, share personal stories of finding their way to nursing school, where they begin a long, often wonderful, and sometimes daunting, journey.

Many of the nurse-authors are experienced, well- published writers; others are academics, widely known in their fields; but each offers a unique perspective on nursing education. Notably, an essay by Minnie Brown Carter and an interview with Helen L. Albert provide valuable ethnographies of underrepresented voices.

Through strong, moving essays and poems that explore various aspects of student nursing and provide historical perspective on nursing and nursing education, all have stories to tell. Learning to Heal tells them in ways that will appeal to many readers, both in and out of the nursing and medical professions, and to educators in the medical humanities.

What is it like to be a student nurse? What are the joys, the stresses, the transcendent moments, the fall-off-your-bed- laughing moments, and the terrors that have to be faced and stared down? And how might nurses, looking back, relate these experiences in ways that bring these memories to life again and provide historical context for how nursing education has changed and yet remained the same?

In brave, revealing, and often humorous poetry and prose, Learning to Heal explores these questions with contributions by nurses from a variety of social, ethnic, and geographical backgrounds. Readers meet a black nursing student who is surrounded by white teachers and patients in 1940, a mother who rises every morning at 5 A.M. to help her family ready for their day before she herself heads to anatomy class, and an itinerant Jewish teenager whois asked, "What will you become?" These individuals, and many other women and men, share personal stories of finding their way to nursing school, where they begin a long, often wonderful, and sometimes daunting, journey.

Many of the nurse-authors are experienced, well- published writers; others are academics, widely known in their fields; but each offers a unique perspective on nursing education. Notably, an essay by Minnie Brown Carter and an interview with Helen L. Albert provide valuable ethnographies of underrepresented voices.

Through strong, moving essays and poems that explore various aspects of student nursing and provide historical perspective on nursing and nursing education, all have stories to tell. Learning to Heal tells them in ways that will appeal to many readers, both in and out of the nursing and medical professions, and to educators in the medical humanities.