Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner Remembers - Paperback

by Marianna Crane (Author)

Running a clinic for seniors requires a lot more than simply providing medical care. In Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic, Marianna Crane chases out scam artists and abusive adult children, plans a funeral, signs her own name to social security checks, and butts heads with her staff--two spirited older women who are more well-intentioned than professional--even as she deals with a difficult situation at home, where the tempestuous relationship with her own mother is deteriorating further than ever before. Eventually, however, Crane maneuvers her mother out of her household and into an apartment of her own--but only after a power struggle and no small amount of guilt--and she finally begins to learn from her older staff and her patients how to juggle traditional health care with unconventional actions to meet the complex needs of a frail and underserved elderly population.

Author Biography

Marianna Crane became one of the first gerontological nurse practitioners in the early 1980s. A nurse for over forty years, she has worked in hospitals, clinics, home care, and hospice settings. She writes to educate the public about what nurses really do. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Eno River Literary Journal, Examined Life Journal, Hospital Drive, Stories That Need to be Told: A Tulip Tree Anthology, and Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine. She lives with her husband in Raleigh, North Carolina. Visit her at www.nursingstories.org.