From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public

As nurses face the ongoing challenges of an increasing need for their services combined with economic pressures, members of the largest profession in health care must become more visible, vocal and influential. "From Silence to Voice" is designed to help nurses understand and overcome the self-silencing that often leads RNs to downplay their own expertise and their contributions to the care of the sick and the health of the public. Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon teach nurses, nurse educators and nurse researchers critical skills they can use to explain their work to other health-care professionals, journalists, policymakers and political representatives. "From Silence to Voice" features stories about nurses who ensure that patients receive appropriate, timely and even life-saving care, nurses who make all the difference while crises are underway but whose contributions are neglected in medical charts and thank-you notes and nurses who are left out altogether or obscured by the generic "nurse". However, the book also provides detailed accounts of nurses who do make their voices heard, who do make their concerns public - and it shows how those successes can be duplicated.