I am currently reading From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Need to Communicate to the Public, by Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon. I simply cannot recommend this book highly enough for any nurse interested in how nurses are perceived by society at large.
While I have yet to finish the entire book, I can say that Buresh and Gordon are touching on every aspect of nursing that irks me:
Why are nurses not quoted more often as experts on healthcare?
Why do nurses allow themselves to be portrayed so poorly in the media?
What is it about nurses that keeps them from taking credit for what they do?
Why do nurses insist that "doctors cure and nurses care"? Don't we also play a large role in curing? Aren't our interventions important? Are we not more than just handmaidens for doctors?
Why doesn't the public more fully understand what nurses do?
From Silence to Voice is excellently written and researched, and I look forward to writing a series of long blog posts on my main blog based on my readings. Please consider ordering a copy for yourself or a friend, and I highly recommend you do so from the authors' website rather than from Amazon or some other corporate interest.
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By the way, I recommend Life Support and Nursing Against the Odds, both by Suzanne Gordon.