Published by: Viking
Pages: 280
Date released: 18/04/2019
Date read: 05/05/2019
As a teenager, Molly Case underwent an operation that saved her life. Nearly a decade later, she finds herself in the operating room again – this time as a trainee nurse. She learns to care for her patients, sharing not only in their pain, but also life-affirming moments of hope. In doing so, she offers a compelling account of the processes that keep them alive, from respiratory examinations to surgical prep. But when Molly’s father is admitted to the cardiac unit where she works, the professional and the personal suddenly collide.
This was one of the first medical-type books I read, and it’s made a lasting impression. Before I read this, I hadn’t read a book for almost four months and it was starting to break my heart that I had lost my love for it. But once I picked this up, I read it from cover to cover within a matter of hours and suddenly my spark was reignited.
Molly seamlessly weaves together her professional life with her personal experiences to create a beautiful piece of prose, reminding us all that we all find the meaning of our own lives, within the lives of others. This may sound overly sentimental, but Molly never goes down that route. She is empathetic and sympathetic and caring to a fault, but she presents the facts. Nursing is bloody hard work and is not all sunshine and roses.
Molly’s way of writing about potential life and death situations is funny, intelligent, loving and heartbreaking. She offers such a beautiful depiction of working as a nurse – the true angels of the NHS. Little did she know when this was published in 2019, just how important nurses would become to the survival of British people a matter of months later.
Books By Your Bedside 