From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public

by Bernice Buresh, Suzanne Gordon

Overview

This is an invaluable book for all nurses, especially those who are proud of being nurses and who have always wanted to make others understand our passion.― Nursing Standard

For more than a decade, From Silence to Voice has been providing nurses with communication tools they can use to win the resources and respect they deserve. Now, in a timely third edition, authors Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon focus on how nurses can describe and frame their work to seize unprecedented opportunities to advance their profession and lead improvements in health care systems.The authors, both journalists, argue that because nursing needs the support and cooperation of others to fulfill its potential, it is critical that nurses communicate the full scope of nursing practice. Nurses must go beyond describing nursing in terms of dedication and caring and articulate nurses' specialized knowledge and expertise.

From Silence to Voice helps nurses explain their contributions to patient safety, satisfaction, and outcomes. It shows how nurses can communicate with various publics about important aspects of their work, such as how they master and employ complex medical technologies and regimens, and how they use their clinical judgment in life-and-death situations. "Nurses and nursing organizations," the authors write, "must go out and tell the public what nurses really do so that patients can actually get the benefit of their expert care."

This comprehensively revised and updated third edition helps nurses use a range of traditional and social media to accurately describe the true nature of their work. Its analyses of images that are projected by nursing campaigns and its detailed guidance in helping nurses construct positive and powerful narratives of their work make From Silence to Voice a must-read in nursing schools and organizations and by individual nurses in all areas of the profession. Because nurses are busy, many of the communication techniques in this book are designed to integrate naturally into nurses’ everyday lives and to complement nurses’ work with patients and families.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801467363
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2013
Series:	The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	385,215
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bernice Buresh writes and lectures on health care, nursing, and the media. She has been a reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel, a correspondent and bureau chief for Newsweek, a professor of journalism at Boston University, and an adjunct professor of American Studies at Brandeis University. Suzanne Gordon is Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and was program leader of the Robert Wood Johnson–funded Nurse Manager in Action Program. She is the author of Life Support and Nursing against the Odds, coauthor of Beyond the Checklist and Safety in Numbers, editor of When Chicken Soup Isn't Enough, and coeditor of First, Do Less Harm and The Complexities of Care, all from Cornell.

Table of Contents

IntroductionPart I. Silent No More
Chapter 1. Ending the Silence
Chapter 2. The Daisy Dilemma
Chapter 3. From Virtue to the Voice of Agency
Chapter 4. Presenting Yourself as a Nurse
Chapter 5. Tell the World What You Do
Chapter 6. Creating Anecdotes and ArgumentsPart II. Communicating with the Media and the Public
Chapter 7. How the News Media Work
Chapter 8. Reaching Out to the Media
Chapter 9. In Your Own Voice: Blogs, Comments, Letters to the Editor, Op-Eds
Chapter 10. Getting It Right
Chapter 11. Appearing on Television, Radio, and Videos
Chapter 12. Opportunities and Challenges AheadAppendix: How We Came to Write This BookNotes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Joan Lynaugh

This is a unique book—one that every practicing nurse will want to read now and every person aspiring to become a nurse MUST read to understand nursing. These well-known journalists share their deep, rich experience about how the world of media, public influence and debate really works. But most of all, this is a book of ideas; refreshingly fresh ideas which I guarantee you will read from front to back. From Silence to Voice makes you take a long, hard look at our wonderful profession and offers some potent suggestions for our future.
—(Joan Lynaugh, RN, PhD, FAAN, Professor Emeritus and Term Chair, History of Nursing and Health Care, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing)

Editorial Reviews

The book is written by two journalists who have taken on the nursing profession more or less the way we take on patients with a life-threatening condition that is curable but requires both intensive and long-term care. The diagnosis, according to Buresh and Gordon, is silence. By being silent, we miss the opportunity to show ourselves as consequential in the delivery of healthcare. The remedy for silence, according to the authors, is voice—our voices raised in conversation first and foremost with our families, friends, and patients, and also with the general public.

Nursing Spectrum

This is an invaluable book for all nurses, especially those who are proud of being nurses and who have always wanted to make others understand our passion.

Nursing Standard

The book is written by two journalists who have taken on the nursing profession more or less the way we take on patients with a life-threatening condition that is curable but requires both intensive and long-term care. The diagnosis, according to Buresh and Gordon, is silence. By being silent, we miss the opportunity to show ourselves as consequential in the delivery of healthcare. The remedy for silence, according to the authors, is voice--our voices raised in conversation first and foremost with our families, friends, and patients, and also with the general public.

-- "Nursing Spectrum"

This is an invaluable book for all nurses, especially those who are proud of being nurses and who have always wanted to make others understand our passion.

-- "Nursing Standard"

From the Publisher