"The tandem stories of Case as nurse and daughter exert the pull of a novel through pages threaded with philosophy and history, ethics and etymology."
"[Case] writes movingly about what care is on the most basic human level.… She illuminates the fascinating and never-ending loop of care in a hospital."
New York Times Book Reviews’ Choice
"What differentiates How to Treat People from other cracking doctor and nurse memoirs already out there is Case’s youth and her outstanding use of language. Her charm is her generation’s charm: open, loving, bold, inquisitive, caring. May she inspire her contemporaries to join her in a vital job."
"Poignant.… An intimate and illuminating portrait of the private moments between patients, their families, and the nurses who care for them."
"[Molly Case’s] insight into the nursing profession is a… mix of observation and empathy. Mixing personal history with medicinal history and insights into life on the ward, How To Treat People is ultimately a narrative of human connection."
"Written with a poet’s ear for language and a nurse’s compassionate heart. It will make you cry, and it will buoy your faith in humanity."
"By turns gut-wrenching in its visceral descriptions of medical emergencies, and filled with the joy and satisfaction of seeing a patient recover.… Case’s empathy and compassion are everywhere evident in this beautifully written narrative."
"[Case] writes movingly about what care is on the most basic human level.… She illuminates the fascinating and never-ending loop of care in a hospital."
Editors’ Choice - New York Times Book Review
[How to Treat People ] will restore your faith…[Case] illuminates the fascinating and never-ending loop of care in a hospital: Doctors and nurses tend to their charges for hours, often without a break, then hand them over to the next shift, and on and on and on, shuttling patients as best they can through a balky, imperfect health care system.
The New York Times Book Review - Tina Jordan
05/27/2019
“Respect the nurse” is the theme of this reverential memoir from London nurse Case. “It is the nurses,” Case writes, “who, despite racking up thousands of steps on their pedometers, are in fact a static constant for the person lying in extremis in the hospital bed.” Case began working in hospitals as a student nurse in 2012, and her book documents her time learning her craft as she delves into medical history (Greeks and Egyptians factor heavily) and explains surgical procedures. At its core, though, it’s a lucidly written narrative about patient care: Case points out that a nurse must treat patients’ ailments and try to sooth their souls, even when patients are combative—as was the case with Sidney, who refused treatment for his maggot-infested legs—or insulting, as with Shirley, a heart-attack victim who called Case a slut. Case’s writing is efficient and never too emotional, but there are amusing moments, including the time she couldn’t remove a 70-year-old patient’s penis piercing and had to call for assistance. Case writes of feeling especially thankful for her training, noting one evening in particular when she aided her father as he had a stroke. This book is a thank you note to hospital caregivers and will appeal to those interested in nursing and the intricacies of patient care. (Sept.)
"Case has produced a serious book, one that deserves a place in the rich contemporary canon of medical memoirs…She is best when describing the conditions that mysteriously hover between physical and psychological…She shows us that the unique role of a nurse is to understand and care for people both physically and emotionally."
"How to Treat People gets to the heart of who we are—how we live and also how we die. I was moved twice over—by the work Molly does as a nurse every day, and by the book she has written."
"Molly Case takes us on a wondrous journey into healthcare’s mysterious world, interweaving her nursing care with science and history while, most importantly, offering her patients compassion, all in the midst of allowing us to peer into her personal life as she manages health issues striking her and her father. No one lives a life absent of illness or injury. I hope that when takotsubo syndrome (failing heart) overcomes me, Molly will be available to provide my care."
2019-06-23
Combining a near dreaminess with quotidian details, both refreshingly and intimately shared ("as a last resort, we use medication to subdue patients: haloperidol, which between ourselves we call vitamin H"), London-based Case tells the story of her first steps as a nurse. She begins by discussing "last offices," the procedures undertaken after the death of a patient. The author writes with a refreshing matter-of-factness that keeps things from becoming too opaque. She frames the narrative around the nursing checklist when first examining a patient: airway, breathing, circulation, disability, exposure. She covers each of these steps in a number of short chapters that range among compact profiles of her patients, family tales (her father was in and out of the hospital), and nursing lore and wisdom. Though Case's writing is unaffected, that doesn't mean it isn't moving. When a man died alone in her ward, she writes, "I watched as the patient seemed to disappear." Her simple explanations make for clear understanding of, for example, why a patient might try to pull out a chest drain and IV lines after an operation. Some of the most pungent passages come from what she has learned from her time on the ward. "I had become fluent," she writes, "in the way blood moved, smelt, how its colour could signal a patient's chances of survival." The action takes place at an English hospital, where Case easily swings into teaching mode. We get a smattering of Galen, Aristotle, the Tzeltal Mayans, and others on their approaches to medicine, and as the author chronicles how to analyze a pulse, she reminds us that the word comes from "pulsus," Latin for "to beat." Each chapter is a filigree, tenderly rendered no matter what the subject.
A finely wrought delineation of the art of nursing.
