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John D. Loeser, MD, Department Editor
Reviewed by John D. Loeser, MD
J. Briles, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1994, $25, 261 pages, ISBN 1-55542-671-9
I would not normally call this book to the attention of our members, but I received it for review. The author has surveyed, in an idiosyncratic fashion, women who are employed in various areas of the healthcare industry. She has found that the American workplace is not always a happy, healthy place. Since the vast majority of women who work in health care are nurses and since nurses interact most frequently with other nurses, it should come as no surprise that they often act out the stresses of their jobs on one another. Whether there is anything relevant to gender in these data is not clear to this reader. This book is not science, and it is not even very good, although the author does offer some reasonable suggestions for dealing with workplace “toxicity.” If you do not know about the less pleasant aspects of working in health care in an era of reengineering, some of the issues are presented here.
John Loeser is professor of neurological surgery and anesthesiology and director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.
