A Splendid Gift

The story of a life well lived and the benefit to others.
As one who became an RN in 1968, I definitely remember the good and bad of the years that ensued. The enclave of nurses I worked with in those early days did not have the kind of repressive marital experiences that the author suffered (we ALL related to and practiced the philosophy that the children of a marriage belonged to BOTH parents to care for as we continued to work off shift). I finally left nursing about the the time that I overheard a few new nurses saying things like "I didn't spend years in college just to clean up messes", and "I went into nursing for the money", and the worst was "I want to go back and get an advance practice degree so I don't have to work off shifts". They were not joking and didn't know that there was anyone to overhear.
I requested and received an EARC from Indigo River Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you

*** Thank you Barbara Elle Prisceaux, Indigo River Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC ***
Release Date: 09.12.2023

I have been a Registered Nurse since 2017 and I am burned out. I am burned out even after job hopping. My soul is crushed and tired after spending the last few years dealing with the things I have seen. Reading “A Splendid Gift” brought back some of the hope that I felt as a new grad ready to take on the nursing world. Prisceaux has seen and done it all in the last sixty years. She went from ER, essentially every type of inpatient unit, military and even roles away from bedside. Priscreaux’s highs and lows are those I still feel to this day as a nurse. The chapter that really stuck with me “Finally Finding my Niche” is something I still am hopeful to one day find. I joke with my coworkers I’ve got 2-3 career changes before I throw in the towel. This book is perfect for any health care worker, especially a nurse – regardless of how many years they’ve been in practice. Thank you for letting read this ARC.

Synopsis (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review.)
*********************************************************
A Splendid Gift: Celebrating 60 Years in Nursing tells the story of Barbara Elle Prisceaux, who turned a childhood dream into an extraordinary career.

As a young girl in Yonkers, New York, Barbara was drawn to the nurses walking from their residence at the end of her block to the hospital several streets away. She decided then and there that she would become a nurse too by age fifteen, when her family was living in West Lawn Pennsylvania, she accepted a part-time nurse’s aide position at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Reading, and she bused twenty miles each way after school, and sometimes, on weekends. At eighteen, she was accepted into the School of Nursing at Bellevue Hospital, Class of 1962.

Including two enlistments in the Army Nurse Corps Reserves, Barbara spent most of her career on the West Coast. In 2003, she moved from California to Central Florida and changed her patient care focus from Emergency and Critical Care to Oncology Nursing. Combining her nursing career with her love of writing, Barbara developed and coordinated educational programs in Critical Care; designed legal defence protocols for Renal Transplant litigations; cofounded Paper Chasers Medical-Legal Consultations; edited documents for Northern California District Attorneys Association, and as an Oncology Certified Nurse in Florida, specializing in clinical research and advocacy for oncology patients and their families.

Throughout her six-decade career, Barbara met challenge after challenge head-on, from ever-changing technology to hospital politics. When she retired at the age of seventy-seven, she was working two 12-hour shifts each week, providing hands-on care to patients in a medical center eighty miles from her home.

Nursing has changed SO MUCH – COVID has broken the health care system, people call in with a cough saying that they cannot work, knowing fully well that they get three days off PAID, and they cannot be fired as they are in a union. (Same with RNAs, RPNs, PAs, PSW, etc. etc. and all the TLAs (three-letter acronyms) that fall into the healthcare system!)
My Aunt trained in a hospital like they used to (Sick Kid’s in Toronto) and then worked in Broken Hill, Australia and finally landed in Hollywood, CA, where she met my uncle and worked until they had children. She kept her licence intact and ended up (once the boys were in grade school) working in the California Penal system…oh, she, too, could write a book, especially when it came to dealing with the North Ridge Earthquake. #butIdigress

Barbara had a varied and extensive career going from a public hospital (Bellevue) to working for legal organizations. Old school nurses and their care are a dying breed! Their dedication and actually loving and caring for their patients (and maybe meeting a cute doctor to marry along the way) is gone. Most nurses I find are there for the paycheck, are burned out (beyond burned out) from COVID and from working with the aging baby boomers. And the PAPERWORK…I know the charge nurse at my dad’s memory-care nursing home and she is buried in and spends (still!) trying to fill shifts with staff who have not “pulled a sickie” on a beautiful day…she rarely sees patients anymore. And they have ANOTHER COVID outbreak … three and a half years since it first appeared in Canada.

I LOVED this book – but I love medical shows and would love a movie or series based on her life and I will recommend this book to patrons, family, friends, and book clubs alike. I am also ordering a copy of the book for my RN aunt’s 87th birthday when it comes out this autumn. READ. THIS. BOOK.
#shortbutsweetreviews (okay, this one was uncharacteristically long!

She does not seem to have any social media but she does have a website: https://www.barbaraelleprisceaux.com/

I am not a nurse but I've always been interested in the medical field. This is the story of a woman, or should I say a super woman, who spent six decades in the field. The things she accomplished (she even went to law school!) are nothing short of amazing - and at the same time was raising a family. Her accomplishments and her commitment to her field and family are almost unbelievable. She details everything she has done and yet there is no boasting in her words. She is truly a woman ahead of her times. A very inspirational story. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed getting to know Barbara Elle Prisceaux in this memoir. It was really interesting to learn about these nursing tales. It kept me engaged and I enjoyed that Barbara Elle Prisceaux was telling the story. I enjoyed reading this and thought it worked overall.

A Splendid Gift by Barbara Elle Prisceaux takes us through the nursing career of the author. I have been fascinated with nurses since I read the Cherry Ames series as a girl. I found the story to be easy to read. The author writes like she is talking to friends. We get to follow her from nursing school through her long career. I am amazed at what she accomplished. She also had a husband and three kids. I was surprised to learn that she attended law school which is no easy feat. She certainly had a long career. It was interesting to see how medicine and nursing changed from when she entered the profession to when she retired. The author tells the good and the bad of her working life and her home life. A Splendid Gift is a book that can be read by those in the medical field and readers like me who are interested in the nursing profession.