Yes, the good news has arrived. Caring Lessons: A Nursing Professor’s Journey of Faith and Self should arrive by September 10. Stay tuned in to this blog to get buying information that will benefit nursing education.
And some of you have been asking for a description of Caring Lessons to be posted here. So this is the advertising blurb that my publisher, Deep River Books, had released to lots of book distributors:
Description:
Imagine not wanting to be a nurse, teacher, or teacher of psychiatric nursing only to find yourself doing all three—and loving it!
In Caring Lessons, Lois Roelofs tells her stories about being a rebellious minister’s daughter, reluctant nurse, restless mom, perpetual student, and eventually, fun-loving teacher. She used to tell her students that if she, an ordinary suburban sandbox mom, propelled by restlessness and prayer, could end up having a career, growing in faith, and getting a PhD, they could too.
Roelofs brings the “therapeutic use of self” required in nursing to her writing. You will be amused, saddened, and inspired as you read this intimate and introspective memoir. You may even run to enroll or teach in a nursing program, and, if you’re already teaching nursing students, you may discover renewed gratitude for the privilege.
The main theme of the book is caring—caring for others and caring for oneself. The “others” in Roelofs’ career involved students as well as patients: students in the classroom, clinical settings, and her office and patients in inpatient as well as in a variety of outpatient settings. In caring for others, the nurse as caregiver must care for herself; she did so by changing jobs to suit her interests, going back to school more than once to feed her crave for learning, and seeking professional help when first her restlessness as an unhappy housewife and much later, illnesses of several people close to her and her husband’s cancer invaded her personal life.
The idea for writing Caring Lesson came while Roelofs in Chicago was talking to a nursing friend in North Carolina. They were nearing retirement, wondering what they would do with their time, when the subject of writing their nursing stories popped up. They both had a passion for their profession and felt people need to know more about nurses. What do they do? How do they think? How do they choose where to work and what kind of work they do? And because she couldn’t find any memoirs written by nursing professors describing their personal and professional lives, she felt she could reach out to others with her story.
Readers will learn the importance of faith, family, and friendship that applies to their own lives whatever their profession and will come away with a new appreciation of caring for themselves as well as caring for others.
Author/Contributor Bio:
Lois Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Nursing at Trinity Christian College. Her new passion is writing and reading creative nonfiction.
So, I’ll keep you up to date. Thanks for stopping by!
Write Along with Me 
Lois, congratulations on your upcoming book. It sounds wonderful and fascinating. I have a friend who is a former nurse and a writer who I know will be excited to hear about your book.
Also keep an eye out next week for info on SheWrites about a new monthly “She Writers’ Launch party” (on Twitter as befits an online community)! Hope you will be able to join the September celebration of all September publishees’ wonderful accomplishments.
Best, Kathy
Host, forthcoming She Writers Book Launch Parties
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Thanks so much, Kathy. I certainly will join the SW Launch Party. And I’m happy to hear you have a nurse/writer friend that may be interested.
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Dear Lois,
I’m the friend of Kathy Jordan who was-what is this was stuff? Once a nurse, ALWAYS a nurse. Once I stopped actively practicing, I began freelance writing, doing that for nursing magazines and newspapers for 9 years. No training, just plain guts, determination and my editor said, natural talent.
Long story short, that journal gig came to a close 9/2009 and I’ve spend the last few months tossing around the idea of a book. Yesterday, on the way to Kathy’s author talk and book signing, we discussed my proposal and I brought up the topic of making my story a human interest piece, rather than a book.
What am I writing about? Well, I worked for 9 years as a hospice case manager. What Id be writing about would be, not what hospice does, or anything of that nature. Rather, my topic would be about the many things that I learned from my patients; and why and how.
I’m definitely interested in your book. Are you still in the Chicago area. Your bio mentioned that you taught at Trinity. There’s a Trinity in Chicago, we moved from there in 2006 and are visiting there in the fall for 9 days.
I’d love to pick your brain to learn more about your writing process. I don’t have a process; I just organize my articles and tell a story. But, I don’t think I can get away with that in a book!
Annie
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Hi Annie,
How fun to hear from you. I agree–once a nurse, always a nurse! I still look at everyone’s hands to assess their veins for starting an IV, plus many other things.
I’d love to meet with you and share what I’ve learned about the writing process. It is, indeed, a process. Yes, I’m in the Chicago area (right downtown, in fact), and the Trinity from which I retired is Trinity Christian College in the south suburb of Palos Heights. There’s also a Trinity up north in Deerfield.
I like your idea of writing about what you learned. My friend Marianna and I, when we sat down to plan our books, wanted them to focus on the inside life of the nurse. What makes us tick? What influences our career choices? How do we get to be the nurses we turn out to be?
Not to downgrade the “I took care of 74-year old Mr. Burns, admitted with severe head trauma from a car-truck collision…” type of story that then goes into the clinical aspects of the seriousness of his case, but Marianna and I thought that our responses, our inner selves, was as important as chronicling our nursing interventions and patients’ progress and outcomes. And I think this would be important from a hospice nurse’s point of view. Especially since the few nursing memoirs out there are mostly from “guts and blood” specialties such as ICU, ER, and military.
You may email me at caringlessons@aol.com to let me know when you’re coming to town and we can work out a date and time to meet. And cheers to you for breaking into the freelance world.
Lois
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