BABY ER from Edward Humes 2000, 3...

BABY ER

from Edward Humes 2000, 320 pp $25 hardback

The author writes this work from a unique perspective. His newborn daughter exhausted seven days in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in a large hospital, make up fored and went home. It was not until six years later that he got the idea to write about the things he witnessed in the NICU.

To write the part the author returned to the NICU at Miller Children's Hospital, protracted Beach, Calif, not as a patient's father, yet as a journalist and examiner He gained the confidence of patients' family members and staff members. These folks shared their heart-wrenching stories with him, and he quick in emergenciess these stories in the book

from one extremity to the other of the book, it is apparent that the author is biased against small hospitals. He claims they proffer steak dinners and videocassette recorders to novel parents, but cannot resuscitate a 28-week-old preemie effectively. He admonishes parents to elect wisely where to deliver and consider what is really important. an of the chapters are short and tension filled, echoing stinging perceptions, of that kind as "whether the patient lives or dies, hospital billing is forever."

The author weaves together the stories of sick infants and their family members. He includes personal glimpses of physicians and neonatal compeers Readers share in the twinkling when a mother writes be fond of letters to her critically ill premature son hoping he will live to read them.

For a lay character the author uses surprisingly correct vernacular in speaking about injured children, high-order multiples, gastroschisis, frozen embryotics and other issues. He discusses outdated beliefs and preemie surgery mixing the unconventional and conventional well.

The author explains the neutral answers that nourish hope but at no time promise that staff members must give to anxious parents and family members of infants. He also discusses the frustration of festers physicians, and social workers in patient care colloquys and in dealing with the parents of their patients. He explores to what extent cocaine destroys the placenta, the fetus, and the infant's life.

The history and ethics of neonatology, along with any of its treatments and modalities, also make for interesting reading. For example, the author discusses the use and misuse of oxygen and the epidemic of blindness it caused 50 years ago.

Political strife in the medical arena also is addressed, specifically regarding staffing issues, unions, and the buying and selling of medical facilities. It is evident the author has special insight into the point in disputes nurses and physicians deal with forward a day-to-day basis but that usually are not apparent to an outsider.

This main division is both touching and sweet as it deals with the lives and deaths of these infants. It is an unvarnished anticipate at the NICU and is great reading for anyone who desires a behind-the-scenes perspective.

This work is available from Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, of recent origin York, NY 10020.

KAREN s PETTIT RN, BSN, CNOR, C SURGICAL COORDINATOR SOUTHWEST WOMEN'S CARE PHOENIX

COPYRIGHT 2001 Association of Operating latitude Nurses, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group