2010 PROSE Award Winner for Nursing & Allied Health Sciences! 2010 AJN Book of the Year Award Winner in Public Interest and Creative Works! "The accounts are vivid, colorful, descriptive, intense, and often horrific and give cross-sectional views of life in the trenches during this disasterÖThis book is a rich primary source for both historians and disaster preparedness planners. It's not only a tribute to the courage of the nurses, but should also serve as a guide for policy planners hoping to avoid less than optimal responses to future crises."--AJN "[T]he book...fascinates simply for its raw documentation of the dreadful events and conditions endured by nurses, doctors, and ancillary staff as they struggled to care for critically ill patients without electricity, running water, air conditioning systems, and other resources. Five years after the levees broke, the horror and chaos of Katrina is still fresh in these accounts. Through the stories, readers are transported into the hospitals as nurses heroically work together to evacuate babies from NICUs and vented patients from ICU, try to calm patients, family members, and coworkers, and make do with the equipment and supplies theyíve got."--National Nurse "Don't ever think that this can't happen to you. You are going to read this and it's going to sound like we created this scenario, but this is a real scenario that happened." --Pam, Memorial Medical Center "Everything that was battery operated eventually died. There were no monitors...we tried to take care of people in the most humane way possible." --Lois, Lindy Boggs Medical Center Nursing in the Storm: Voices from Hurricane Katrina takes you inside six New Orleans hospitals-cut off from help for days by flooding-where nurses cared for patients around the clock. In this book, nurses from Hurricane Katrina share what they did, how they coped, what they lost, and what they are doing now in a city and health care infrastructure still rebuilding, still in jeopardy. In their own words, the nurses tell what happened in each hospital just before, during, and after the storm. Danna and Cordray provide an intimate portrait of the experience of Katrina, which they and their colleagues endured. Just a few of the heroic nurses you'll find inside: Rae Ann and twenty others, including her husband and children, who wait on a hospital roof for help to come Lisa, in the midst of caring for patients, who has not heard from her husband in 5 days Roslyn, who has 800 people in her hospital when the power generators shut down Linda, who uses bed sheets to write out help messages on a hospital roof, hoping someone will see them The book also discusses how to plan and prepare for future disasters, with a closing chapter documenting the "lessons learned" from Katrina, including day-to-day health care delivery in a city of crisis. This groundbreaking work serves as a testament to nurses' professionalism, perseverance, and unwavering dedication.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning book that inspired an Apple Original series from Apple TV+ • A landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and the suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning physician and reporter “An amazing tale, as inexorable as a Greek tragedy and as gripping as a whodunit.”—Dallas Morning News After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting by Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink, unspools the mystery, bringing us inside a hospital fighting for its life and into the most charged questions in health care: which patients should be prioritized, and can health care professionals ever be excused for hastening death? Transforming our understanding of human nature in crisis, Five Days at Memorial exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals how ill-prepared we are for large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Entertainment Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Ridenhour Book Prize, American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award, National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Award

Defending Hurricane Katrina's most notorious couple. In the media storm that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, nursing home owners Sal and Mabel Mangano were vilified for allegedly causing the deaths of 35 residents of St. Rita's Nursing Home in low-lying St. Bernard Parish. This book, written by the lawyer who defended them, reveals the gripping, true story behind the couple's heartrending decision not to evacuate and their persecution at the hands of the government sworn to protect them.

As Hurricane Katrina barreled towards New Orleans, Louisiana, hospitals across the city prepared for the coming storm. Staff members streamed in and began stockpiling food, water, medical supplies, and fuel. But what no one foresaw was that their emergency generators would flood and fail, leaving hospitals stranded in the rising water with no air conditioning or much of their equipment and unable to evacuate patients and staff by land. Throughout the devastating winds, rising waters, and August heat, nurses stuck by their patients. They improvised new emergency procedures and methods of record-keeping and patient transport, all without power or reliable information. These angels saved lives while their world fell apart around them. The individual voices of nurses come from six New Orleans-area hospitals--Veterans Affairs, Pendleton Memorial, Medical Center of Louisiana in New Orleans, Charity, Tulane Medical Center, and Ochsner--as well as Lambeth House retirement community and the Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. They speak to the vital importance and ingenuity of nurses under pressure. This work examines the disaster plans used by each facility, examines what the most successful procedures were, and provides recommendations for preparing nurses for disaster response. Voices of Angelsis a case study and planning guide essential for facilities facing hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, and a host of other issues that affect medical centers nationwide.

Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud owners of a near-derelict croft house—a farmer’s stone cottage—on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse. Call the Nurse is her account of the enchanted years she and her family spent there, coming to know its folk as both patients and friends. In anecdotes that are by turns funny, sad, moving, and tragic, she recalls them all, the crofters and their laird, the boatmen and tradesmen, young lovers and forbidding churchmen. Against the old-fashioned island culture and the grandeur of mountain and sea unfold indelible stories: a young woman carried through snow for airlift to the hospital; a rescue by boat; the marriage of a gentle giant and the island beauty; a ghostly encounter; the shocking discovery of a woman in chains; the flames of a heather fire at night; an unexploded bomb from World War II; and the joyful, tipsy celebration of a ceilidh. Gaelic fortitude meets a nurse’s compassion in these wonderful true stories from rural Scotland.

Nurses on the Front Line examines how nurses have responded to both natural and man-made disasters in the United States, Canada, and other nations over the course of the previous and current centuries. It documents 12 disasters, including the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, September 11th, and Hurricane Katrina. More than a simple narrative, this text provides intimate first-hand experiences-through letters, memoirs, oral histories, and newspaper articles-of health care workers, survivors, and civic and private organizations that reflect on the character and speed of responders during a disaster. It illustrates how nurses can restore stability in the aftermath of a chaotic event and analyzes the nurses' role as part of a community response. Key features: Explains in detail what nurses can expect during disasters and what measures to take when disaster strikes Examines previous natural disasters and calls into question whether disasters were caused by accidents or intentional/unintentional human error Discusses policy implications of the different disasters, focusing on the federal government's response Investigates the roles and effects of race, class, and gender during a disaster

The book that finally gives a physicians inside story of the evacuation of Memorial Medical Center following Katrina a gripping tale of abandonment and survival. A toxic stew of floodwaters surrounded Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans after Katrina when the levees broke. Over two thousand people were trapped in the squalid conditions without security as the death toll steadily rose inside. Bodies stacked up in the chapel as the temperature soared in the overcrowded hospital and the situation became increasingly desperate. Doctors, nurses, and staff worked around the clock, caring for those inside and trying to evacuate the facility, also known as Baptist Hospital. Allegations of euthanasia would later make headlines across the country and be investigated by state and local officials. Code Blue: A Katrina Physicians Memoir finally tells the inside story of the hellish nightmare those who struggled to survive the ordeal were cast into. Dr. Richard Deichmann, the hospitals chief of medicine and one of the leaders of the evacuation, gives his compelling account of the rapidly deteriorating state of affairs at the hospital. He takes us through the daily horrors and numbing disappointments. This gripping tale of survival, despite betrayal and abandonment by the authorities, may change forever the way you view the threat of a mass disaster. What Others are Saying about Code Blue: A Katrina Physicians Memoir As a physician who has been on hurricane duty for prior storms, I thought I could imagine what it would be like if we were hit by a severe storm. I was wrong. This book should serve as a warning about what can happen when basic modern conveniences such as power, running water, communications and safety are taken away. - Karen Blessey, MD

In the bestselling tradition of The Perfect Storm and The Finest Hours, “an exquisitely written and dramatic book…a literary page-turner” (Doug Stanton, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Horse Soldiers)—the 2015 mysterious disappearance of the SS El Faro, a gigantic American cargo ship that sank in the Bermuda Triangle, taking with it thirty-three lives. On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a massive American cargo ship disappeared in Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 storm. The ship, its hundreds of shipping containers, and its entire crew plummeted to the bottom of the ocean, three miles down. It was the greatest seagoing US merchant marine shipping disaster since World War II. The massive ship had a seasoned crew, state-of-the-art navigation equipment, and advance warning of the storm. It seemed incomprehensible that such a ship could sink so suddenly. How, in this day and age, could something like this happen? Relying on Coast Guard inquest hearings, as well as on numerous interviews, George Michelsen Foy brings us “the most insightful exploration of this unthinkable disaster” (Outside), a story that lasts only a few days, but which grows almost intolerably suspenseful as deep-rooted flaws leading to the disaster inexorably link together and worsen. We see captain, engineers, and crew fight for their lives, and hear their actual words (as recorded on the ship’s black box) while the hurricane relentlessly tightens its noose around the ship. We watch, minute by minute, all that is happening on board—the ship’s mysterious tilt to one side, worried calls to the engine room, ship-to-shore reports, the courage of the men and women as they fight to survive, and the berserk ocean’s savage consumption of the massive hull. And through it all, the pain and ultimate resilience of the families of El Faro’s crew. Now with a new afterword, this “tour de force of nautical expertise” (Ocean Navigator) is a masterwork of stunning power.

Since the pioneering work of nineteenth-century nurses such as Florence Nightingale, Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton, professional nurses have been involved in caring for the sick and wounded in combat situations. This book contains the accounts of 14 nurses who served in the U.S. military nurse corps during the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars. These men and women describe how they found themselves serving during wartime, the soldiers they cared for, the professionals they worked with and the impact they made in their patients' lives. These varied accounts attest to the tremendous impact this profession has on the lives of individual soldiers and the health of armies at large.

“What a wonderful resource!"--Doody's Medical Reviews “The 4th Edition is unique in recognizing the rapid changes in both the causes of crises and the latest attempts to provide timely multidisciplinary approaches to the practice of this growing specialty...Evident throughout this edition is the call to identify crisis leadership among the increasingly talented base of nurses who have responsibility to move the profession to recognize and accept that they can be advocates for better planning, coordination, education and training.” - Frederick M. Burkle, Jr., MD, MPH, DTM, PhD(Hon.), FAAP, FACEP Senior Fellow & Scientist, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University & T.C. Chan School of Public Health From the Foreword “This impressive edition builds upon the solid foundation of the first three award-winning editions with an expanded focus on climate change related disasters, globalization and its implications for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, the accommodation of high-risk, high-vulnerability populations, and the potential for disaster arising from a world witnessing increasing community violence and civil unrest.” -Patricia M. Davidson, PhD, MED, RN, FAAN Professor & Dean, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing From the Foreword “The contributing authors read like a “Who’s Who” of disaster leaders. They lend their special expertise and insights, which are supported and elucidated by cogent learning strategies in the use of case studies, student questions, and packed content in all areas of disaster participation, preparedness, policies, and research. For over 16 years [this book] has been the hallmark text in its field and this edition proves to be the best ever.” -Loretta C. Ford, RN, PNP, EdD Dean Emeritus, University of Rochester School of Nursing Founder of the National Nurse Practitioner Program Member, National Women’s Hall of Fame Featuring the most current, valid, and reliable evidence-based content available, this three-time AJN winner once again presents an unparalleled resource for disaster and emergency preparedness. Disasters lay heavy burdens upon healthcare systems that stretch all levels of society. While natural and man-made disasters are not new, the global nature, rate, type, and totality of their impact has only increased. The fourth edition of this foundational text uniquely addresses the rapid changes in these crises and analyzes the latest attempts to provide timely, multidisciplinary healthcare. Nurses consistently comprise seventy or more percent of responders to local, national, regional, and global crises, and represent a potentially untapped resource to achieve surge capacity goals and optimize population health outcomes. Considering recent world events and increasing geopolitical tensions, Disaster Nursing and Emergency Preparedness, Fourth Edition now features expanded content on the ubiquitous threat of terrorism, potential detonation of thermonuclear weapons, emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, and increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters from climate change. This text promotes competency-based expert nursing care during disasters and positive health outcomes for small and large populations consistent with the Federal Disaster Response Framework. Whenever possible, content is mapped to published core competencies for preparing health professions’ students for response to terrorism, disaster events, and public health emergencies. The fourth edition retains the clearly organized format in each chapter that includes an overview, learning objectives, a summary, and case study with reflective questions. New to the Fourth Edition: Addresses the most recent landmark agreements Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Climate Agreement Covers public health emergencies involving community violence and civil unrest Expands coverage of planning for and accommodating high-risk, high-vulnerability populations Aligns with the U.S. National Health Security Strategy and the National Planning Frameworks Provides focused content on medical countermeasures Includes an improved instructor package with guide, PowerPoint slides, and case studies with questions for reflection in every chapter