E.R. Nurses

True Stories from America's Greatest Unsung Heroes

By: James Patterson, Matt Eversmann, Chris Mooney - contributor

Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Will Collyer, Betsy Foldes Meiman, Christine Lakin, Mela Lee, Tracey Leigh, Roxana Ortega, Sterling Sulieman, Kiff VandenHeuvel, Rick Zieff

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

They save our lives every day, and we’ve never heard their stories. The life-or-death intensity of working on the front lines, from America’s greatest unsung heroes.

"The compassion, the work ethic, and the selflessness of nurses...are given the respect they deserve and captured beautifully here." (Sanjay Gupta, MD, neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent, CNN)

"James Patterson's account of the twilight world between life and death that nurses inhabit is one of the most moving things I have ever read." (Sebastian Junger, author of Freedom and The Perfect Storm)

Around the clock, across the country, these highly skilled and compassionate men and women sacrifice and struggle for us and our families.

You have never heard their true stories. Not like this. From big-city and small-town hospitals. From behind the scenes. From the heart.

This book will make you laugh, make you cry, make you understand.

When we’re at our worst, E.R. nurses are at their best.

©2021 James Patterson (P)2021 Little, Brown & Company

Critic reviews

“As a trauma neurosurgeon, I have witnessed the compassion, the work ethic, and the selflessness of our nurses in countless situations. They save our lives every day and represent the true life blood of any hospital. Their stories are given the respect they deserve and are captured beautifully in E.R. Nurses.” (Sanjay Gupta, MD, neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent, CNN)

"James Patterson's account of the twilight world between life and death that nurses inhabit is one of the most moving things I have ever read. In their own bullet-straight words, these heroes describe the pain, the love, and the brutally hard work of trying to save people's lives. I could not stop reading it and when I was done I felt like I was changed forever." (Sebastian Junger, author of Freedom, Tribe, War, Fire, and The Perfect Storm)

“E.R. Nurses captures the beating heart of nursing: the lives lost and saved, the hard tragedies and unbelievable miracles, and how every day nurses show up, give their all for patients, and then do it over and over and over again, all while holding onto their empathy and humanity. Readers will be stunned and moved by this no-holds-barred portrait of nurses' essential and deeply meaningful work.” (Theresa Brown, PhD, RN, author of the New York Times best seller The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives)

50 years a NICU nurse. You nailed it

So easy to identify with the medical trauma and drama because it is told in he first person. The concern for patients and their families applies to many of the nurses and doctors with whom I have worked. These are believable accounts of unbelievable medical crises

Excellent Book

God Bless; each of the healthcare professionals that are continuing to work and give so much of themselves each day.
You are so compassionate about being a nurse.

I am a retired R.N., who graduated from a hospital school of Nursing and I am very blessed that I graduated from a hospital school of nursing, where our clinicals were with real live people and not mannequins. We started clinical hospital training within 2 months of our first year.

Perhaps the method of training Nurses needs to require more real hands on training.

My Favorite People

As a recently retired ED Physician, I’ve got to say thank you to the many ER Nurses with whom I’ve practiced for decades.
These personal stories represent the tip of the iceberg. Their heartfelt sacrificial gifts to their fellow human beings are only occasionally recognized. I have joined them in many of their most difficult trials, and so appreciate this tribute to the nurses to whom we all owe so much.
Their lives impact all of us in some way. We owe them our deepest gratitude for the love and expertise they give us.

Beautiful tribute

This is a beautiful kind tribute to nurses and first responders. Happiness and heart strings are tugged.
I didn’t want it to end.

nurses are warriors of our time.

the stories of great joy and sadness out into perspective how truly amazing the calling is to be a nurse

Last line of the book says it all...

They really are Americas
GREATEST UNsung HEROS...
Every day of the week.
THANK. YOU.

A must read/listen.

Anyone thinking of becoming a nurse, or just anyone interested in these gentle sheros and heroes should listen to these poignant stories. Sometimes stark and brutal, but also funny, and all ways life affirming. These stories deftly illustrate what it is to be altogether human.

Love love love this

Being a psychiatric nurse, I was pleased that psych ERs were included. I so appreciate that the expected traumas were described (dead babies, sexual assault victims, cancer striking us at all ages) and those emotional insults that most people do not know about: racism, saving lives when families wish that you had not, arriving at accident scenes too late, and most importantly we go to nursing school because we want to help and care for our fellow humans, and nursing doesn’t prepare us for so many of the stark realities that we face.

Nurses are true heros!

I could not put it down! The work nurses do is simply indescribable. This book is a phenomenal account of their dedication

Nurses bitching

was truly horrified and irritated by RNs describing their "problem" patients and their time constraints for helping. Not a lot of empathy unless your problems are imminent death. Very disappointing.