#New England Nurse

[uwmspeccoll]

(Not So) Steamy Saturday

"The times had brought changes to Whitebridge. Could Jane Weaver, R.N., take up her old life and duties. . . ?"

"'Jane, I'd like you to meet Dr. Boyd Daves. . . .' It took all of Jane's poise to cover her surprise. For the handsome man smiling politely at her from behind the wheel was black."

"A new black doctor had introduced the racial question . . . and Jane found not the threads of her old life but a new challenge to her heart."

Of the 500+ nurse romance novels from the 1940s to the early 1970s in our collection, it is rare to find one with African American main characters, let alone having them depicted on the cover, and even rarer are interracial relationships. In our collection, the nurse romances that do were all published after Civil Rights legislation of the mid-1960s. Such is the case this pulp novel, Homecoming Nurse by Rose Dana (one of the many pseudonyms for prolific pulp-fiction writer W.E.D. Ross, 1912-1995), published in New York by Lancer Books in 1968.

With the novel showcasing many of the social taboos of the time -- divorce, a small New England town forced to come to terms with contemporary racial issues, racially-exclusive country clubs, interracial relationships, mental illness, the village ice queen chasing after a married man -- we thought it would have the makings of a fairly steamy plot. But, alas, its narrative is plodding and pedestrian with barely a wisp of steam. Disappointing. To its credit, however, with the entire town fretting over the potential of miscegenation, the story does culminate in an interracial engagement (between the main character Jane's friend Maggie and Dr. Boyd, not Jane herself). Getting there, however, is tedious and about as exciting as an ice cream parlor on a sleepy New England main street.

View other nurse romance novels.

View other pulp fiction posts.

[mysharona1987]

[starlightshadowsworld]

The Lucy Letby situation is fucked for so many reasons.

Because the actual shit she did was fucked, she's a serial killer, a child murderer.

And the news is like oh she was an English rose.

She didn't have the face of a murderer.... What do child murderers look like? 🤨

Because last I checked, the only nurses that have killed kids in thus country were white women.

And her friends and family being like oh she was so sweet, never angry, never mean oh we'll miss her so much.

"I'll stand with her no matter what? 🥺"... The fuck?!

I have dropped people for less.

And people sympathising with her crying in court like oh poor dear....

She killed 7 babies, you know who the poor dears are the babies!

The parents and families of those poor innocent babies.

God the power of white woman tears is something else.

And for anyone who's like don't bring race into this, you think there'd be this much sympathy if she was black or brown?

Bitch literally wrote a note saying "I'm evil I did this" and there are people who can't believe "an innocent women" could do such evil.

[breads-voice]

Nurses are not heroes.

That was a dangerous narrative perpetuated by the government and media at the height of Covid. It prevents them from being seen as human with human needs. Now it’s being used by the same media and government to justify the horrendous working conditions and pressure they are being put under.

Nurses stay unpaid after every shift to help their patients and colleagues. That’s great! Nurses are heroes ❤️

Nurses working through their breaks to help their patients. That’s great! Nurses are heroes. ❤️

Nurses are dealing with unalive and traumatic situations every day. Nurses are heroes ❤️

Nurses get beaten and abused on shift by patients and relatives but it’s ‘part of the job’. Nurses are heroes ❤️

There is nothing heroic about a person not getting adequate rest between shifts. An exhausted nurse should not be looking after anybody other than themselves. They are human.

There’s nothing heroic about a person not being able to provide themselves with adequate nutrition or hydration. They are human.

There is nothing heroic about not receiving proper support or acknowledgment of the trauma they go through every day. Same with assistants and paramedics. They’re still human.

There is nothing heroic about being black and blue by a patient or stalked by a relative and having to see them the next day. Not being able to do anything about it because it’s seen as ‘part of the role’.

There is a massive difference between ‘knowing what you’re getting into’ as a newly qualified nurse and treating them with disrespect, running them into the ground and expecting them to be ok with not having their basic needs met for the needs of the general public.

The nurses wages do not reflect their working conditions or the trauma they experience and have to heal from. They are human and grieve for their patients too. They don’t reflect that this a vocation requiring a degree. That nurses don’t just ‘make beds’, they insert tubes down peoples throats to breathe for them, take chest drains out, keep people alive with complex concoctions of medications they’ve mixed. And so much more.

The NHS has relied on the generosity of its nurses and assistant staff for too long. That generosity is wearing out. What we are being put through isn’t worth our wages anymore.

Stop advertising nurses as heroes and force the public and parliament to see us as the humans we are.

[guilty-feminist]

[totallyhussein-blog]

Why the UK is so concerned about schools and public buildings

British politics has returned from the summer obsessed with one apparently unlikely subject – concrete. Fears over the safety of reinforced autoclave aerated concrete, or Raac, have closed schools in England and more buildings could follow.

So what is reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or Raac, and why is it suddenly so prominent? To get to grips with this issue, check out the Guardian's Crumbling concrete: why the UK is so concerned about schools and public buildings and the UK’s school buildings failure goes back decades by the Financial Times.

The Royal College of Nursing has also warned that emergency plans should be shared with staff and employers should immediately assess any risk of buildings collapsing. It comes after it was revealed that dozens of NHS buildings and hospitals in England contain the “weaker” reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

“Nursing staff and patients deserve to feel safe and will be alarmed at this letter warning trusts to get ready to evacuate hospitals if they are at risk of collapse. Staff must be properly briefed by their employer and provided with relevant information concerning their place of work. Employers have a legal duty to make sure staff, and others who could be affected, such as patients and visitors, are safe."

While we're on the subject of buildings in Britain, The Morning Star are reporting that nearly 5,000 people in Britain died last year due to damp and cold homes. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition have calculated that of the 21,890 excess winter deaths in 2022-23, 21.5 per cent were caused by people living in cold homes.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

why can’t my entire medical team move to texas with me :(((

[53rdcenturyhero]

NHS protest & survive strategies for reluctant activists (England). I am angry and writing stuff down.

●Write to your MP (tory) saying a polite version of "stop being stealthy little shits we see what your doing & we've already paid in our taxes" , if (labour) write a polite version of "speak up against the degrading of what we've already paid for in committee stages and in H of L". Do write not email, do visit constituency offices briefly & politely saying that the nhs service to help (pick a category) is worse in your personal experience . This raises stats and the issue of expenditure at the MPs office, giving the MP the feeling of their (publicly available) voting record will have effects on their reelection prospects and makes them nervous about just supporting businesses in the area who are incoming splinters off the nhs area funding * because you see and notice what your MP is actually effectively doing on this issue*. ● Support strikes by combatting the idea that strike removal laws have any place in modern societies in conversation to combat the facebook bilge, and question the idea that three twelve hour shifts a week makes efficient use of trained staff. Question the removal of training bursaries. ●Most important of all combat conversations that say strikers are just after money. Its the work conditions they want improving. ● American style health insurance doesnt cover most stuff because what they call "pre existing' is what the rest of the world calls medical history. European style health insurance says we charge you a trivial data entry fee like two coffee price AFTER treating you zero payment by the way have you cut smoking down and what is your employer doing to reduce workplace hazards.... ● Place blame on Westminster govt political ideology choices by saying in conversation reply like "public money straight into private companies thats a bit (pick slur appropriate to the group youre in) OI THATS MY MONEY "= theyll think about their own money...

●● Register to vote, group with like-minded ppl for emotional support (protesting is by definition going against a larger group) speak when safe and be charming when you announce that you have observed their behaviour. The illusion that you are their sort of people who see and dislike their specific choices makes their ego worried and that is the best way to get these bullies to change. Know your enemy by name and get local facebook groups to be polite persistant and public community representative = "we see you've done x and are talking about x+1 and we think this is already harmful " is more effective than "help (underfunded group)". Cut off funding cuts as the excuse, youre involved in tweaking and directing funding which makes them immediately say nothing about who deserves or not deserve. ● if your group encounter fascists in charge by accident withdraw and regroup for a wider block counter. Be the better person at a distance to stay safe and protest again. Dont go it alone, act as a group.

■Take photo ID along to vote. Yes this is England, but watch out for this change. It is worth voting. Dont wait for the next big election. The NHS is in trouble right now.

[s17s17]

My old elementary building. I didn't remember anything about the outside of the building, aside from it was really pink. The inside is actually burnt into my mind, for whatever reason. The basement was dope.

[uwmspeccoll]

Steamy Saturday

There is love, tender and tempestuous. . . .

Curt Wiley, a handsome Texas engineer, came to town. . . .

Judy hated Curt the moment she met him. . . .

Then, . . . Judy discovered that Curt was not the playboy he appeared to be . . . but a decent sensitive human being . . . who seemed to be falling in love with her.

Judy found herself head over heels in love!

Suddenly, Neal Bentley seemed dull and uninteresting to Judy.

By spring she had made a decision . . . a decision that was as much a surprise to Judy as it will be to you.

A surprise? Really? The promotional blurbs project the ending before we even get to the first chapter:

I told you . . . I wasn't worth it. I'm not the steady sort -- say, like your friend, Neal Bentley. . . . I won't make any girl a very good husband. Bentley seems like the right sort for you. . . . She had to choose between the rootlessness of a life as a construction man's wife, or the steady, homespun love of her childhood sweetheart. . . .

A surprise? Neal Bentley, hint, hint. This is staid New England in the 1950s, after all, where:

"When the sap runs in the maple grove . . . that's spring in New England. Spring always comes after the snow -- after the storm.". . Love like Neal's could guarantee that, no matter what came, spring or storm, . . their love -- would never change.

Indeed, there's definitely more sap than steam in New England Nurse by the prolific nurse romance novelist Adelaide Humphries (a pseudonym for Adelaide Morris Rowe, 1898-1979), first published in pulp paperback by Avon Books in 1956. We do appreciate the cover art, however, with its chilly color palate, asymmetrical design, and the nurse who looks, as our intern Ana observed, "like she's so over it, but at the same time still into it." We wish we knew who the cover artist was. And then there's that keen observation about regional differences: "I'm a Texan, not a New Englander. A roamer, not a rock." And there you have it, in a nutshell.

View other nurse romance novels.

View other pulp fiction posts.

[mysharona1987]

[starlightshadowsworld]

No because when a doctor raised concerns about Lucy Letby.

Ravi Jayaram.

A south asian man mind you.

Along with 2 other consultants.

They were told to not be mean to her.

That she cried when they accused her and had to apologise to her.

..... Apologise to a baby killing serial killer?!

Because they made her cry with their accusations.

Which were correct.

And had evidence even at that time to support she was guilty of murdering infants.

Because people couldn't fathom that a woman who looked like her could do something so horrible.

And the news really want to emphasise that someone who looks like her, you can't fathom doing such harm.

[ro-doodles]

Did someone ask for a role swap AU?

No? Well, take one anyway.

In this AU the agency would be based in the US, maybe New York or Boston, since Crystal and Niko are both from or live in America in the show. Then instead of Port Townsend they would go to a small sea side town in England. Like I mentioned in the Charles blurb, I’m swapping Jenny and the Night Nurse for this au, but I’m not sure what to do with the rest of the characters, so I’m open to suggestions.

More of this au:

Jenny and the Night Nurse

The Cat King and Esther (+ Monty)

Miscellaneous Doodles

[trans-axolotl]

ID: Intersex activist Max Beck standing in front of the American Academy of Pediatrics with a sign that says Silence=Death.

On October 26th, 1996, the first ever protest for intersex liberation in America took place when activists from Hermaphrodites With Attitude took to the streets to protest the American Academy of Pediatrics. Later memorialized as intersex awareness day, this important action was a milestone for the American intersex movement. Max Beck, one of the intersex activists from HWA, documented the entire protest and later published their recollection in the Intersex Awakening Issue of the Chrysalis Journal. The full piece is pasted under the cut.  

"But we’re here today to say we’re back, we’re no longer lost, and we’d like to offer some feedback. We’re here to say that the treatment paradigm for “managing” intersexuals is in desperate, urgent need of re-examination. We’re back to say that early surgical intervention leads to more than “just” physical scars and sexual dysfunction. We’re back to say that the lack of education and counseling for intersexuals, our families and the community at large does not lead to a blissful, healthy, well-adjusted ignorance. Rather, it too often leads to a life-threatening shroud of silence, secrecy, and self-hatred. 

I’m here representing over one hundred fifty intersexals throughout North America. One hundred fifty intersexuals are saying: Please! Listen! You doctors, you pediatric endocrinologists and urologists treating intersexuals, you nurses interacting with intersexuals and their families, listen to us! We understand intersexuality, not because we have studied the medical literature — although many of us have — not because we have performed surgeries, but because we have been grappling with intersexuality every day of our lives. We’re here to say that those who would have us believe that intersexuality is rare, cloud the issue by breaking us and separating us into narrow etiological categories which have little meaning in terms of our actual, lived experience. 

We’re here so that other intersexuals can find us — for many of us, finding others like ourselves has been a lifealtering, even life-saving, experience. We’re here to reach parents before their intersex child is born. We’re here to elicit the help of other sympathetic professionals. We can take a stand as openly intersex adults without being crushed by shame! And we did!" 

Hermaphrodites With Attitude Take to the Streets: By Max Beck, 1997

In late October of 1996, Hermaphrodites with Attitude took to the streets, in the first public demonstration by intersexuals in modern history. On a glorious fall day, the like of which you can only find in New England, under a crackling, cloudless sky, twenty-odd protesters joined forces to picket the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pediatricians in Boston. Deeply aware of the historical and personal significance of the action, and — correctly — surmising that a notebook diary would not be practical on such a whirlwind, windy week-end, I took a small hand-held tape recorder with me. What follows are excerpts from the resulting transcript.

October 24, 1996 2:45 PM, Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport

The trip has only just begun and I am already exhausted. Hot. Starving. Fifteen minutes until take-off. Every businessman boarding the plane looks like a pediatric endocrinologist, Boston-bound. Silly thought, testimony to what? My anxiety? My fear? My giddy anticipation? If these bespectacled, suit-and-tie sporting men were pediatricians, would they be flying coach on Continental, with a layover in Newark? I’m headed for Boston, for the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP). Tens of thousands of pediatricians. I’m not a pediatrician, though, nor am I a nurse; in fact, I barely managed to complete my B.A. I’m a manager of a technical laboratory. We don’t work with children, and the AAP certainly didn't invite me, so why am I going?

With the plane taxiing toward take-off, this is a lousy time to reassess. I’m going. I’m going because I am intersexed. I’m going because the doctors and nurses who treated me as an infant and a child and an adolescent, and those who continue to treat intersexed infants and children today, consider me “lost to follow-up.” I was lost— that’s part of the problem. Now, I’m back.

9:02 PM: Boston’s North End

I’m comfortably ensconced in Alice’s warehouse condo in Boston’s North End, a renovated warehouse with a view of the city skyline, ceilings easily twenty feet high, exposed beams and brick, gorgeous tile floor. As I speak, my hostess is preparing an absolutely phenomenal meal. The aroma of roasted peppers permeates the entire space. Tomorrow, the work begins; my project this evening is to unwind and enjoy this wonderful meal. Easier said than done. I’m feeling excited, enervated, I feel very alive, something I don’t feel very often, I feel very present and aware. It could be my exhaustion, it could be the Chardonnay. But I think, rather, that the excitement is anticipation about what we are about to do. Being here, finally being prepared to raise a voice, to be heard, to be seen, a vocal, out, proud hermaphrodite who is standing up to say, “Let’s rethink this, this isn’t working, we’ve been hurt, stop what you’re doing, listen to us!” I’m really looking forward to meeting Morgan at the airport in the morning; it’s always amazing to make eye contact with someone else who has been there.

October 25, 7:38 AM Boston Commons

En route to my encounter with the AAP, walking the approximately two miles from my hostess’ domicile to the Marriott Hotel at Copley Square, I pause in the Boston Commons to enjoy a park bench, to sip my Starbuck’s decaf, and to watch a group of senior citizens performing Japanese swordsmanship on top of the hill beneath a monument to some forgotten general. The city is cool this morning, but clear, and it promises to be a beautiful weekend. That’s good: we won’t be rained out. I’ve got a stack of about ninety ISNA brochures in the bag at my side, crammed in the inside pocket of my leather jacket. If I want these pamphlets to get inside, I’ve got to get to the site of the Nurses’ Panel at the Marriott before they close the doors. Then it’s back out to the airport, to pick up Morgan. My feet are already killing me.

October 26, 9:15 AM: North End

Morgan and I are sitting at our hostess’ breakfast table, pulling our thoughts together. In a few minutes, we’ll have to leave to pick up Riki at the airport. The logistics of pulling together an action are mind-boggling. There’s no describing the thrill, though, of all that work, all those phone calls, all those miles. Riding a clattering subway on a Saturday morning, seated beside another living, breathing, laughing, swearing intersexual, hugging near-strangers at unfamiliar airports, then riding back, together, defiant, determined, organized, to the heart of so much of our pain, so much of our anger, so much of our need. We gathered in front of the huge Hynes Auditorium, pamphlets and leaflets in hand, and met the AAP attendees as they left the convention center for lunch. The next hour-and-a-half was a blur, as we positioned ourselves in strategic locations before the Hynes, held signs and “Hermaphrodites with Attitude” banner aloft, distributed our literature, engaged AAP members and passers-by in conversation and debate, spoke to microphones, to cameras. In all that time, I recorded only one fragment of a breathless sentence. 

Saturday, 12:20 PM Outside the Hynes

We’ve got all the exits covered, and it’s an incredible, incredibly empowering experience. I remember the words I spoke to the TV camera, if only because I had scribbled a rough outline on the airplane, pirating mightily from Cheryl’s press release. And because the moment was so salient, so real. Me, Max, bespectacled, with blisters on my feet and chapped lips, speaking out to untold numbers of invisible viewers (and a few bewildered pediatricians behind me.)

"When an intersex child is born, parents and caregivers are faced with what seems to be a terrible dilemma: here is an infant who does not fit what our society deems normal. Immediate medical intervention seems indicated, in order to spare the parents and the child the inevitable stigmatization associated with being different. Yet the infant is not facing a medical emergency; intersexuality is rarely if ever life-threatening. Rather, the psychosocial crisis of the parents and caregivers is medicalized. 

Intersexuality is assumed to be a birth defect which can be corrected, outgrown and forgotten. The experiences of members of the intersex support groups indicate that intersexuality cannot be fixed; an intersex infant grows up to be an intersex adult. This hasn’t been explored, because intersex patients are almost invariably “lost to follow-up.” The abstract of a talk that will be given at this very conference by a doctor who treats intersex infants concedes that “the psychological issues surrounding genital reconstruction are inadequately understood.”

Part of the problem is that we were lost to follow-up, and there were reasons for that. But we’re here today to say we’re back, we’re no longer lost, and we’d like to offer some feedback. We’re here to say that the treatment paradigm for “managing” intersexuals is in desperate, urgent need of re-examination. We’re back to say that early surgical intervention leads to more than “just” physical scars and sexual dysfunction. We’re back to say that the lack of education and counseling for intersexuals, our families and the community at large does not lead to a blissful, healthy, well-adjusted ignorance. Rather, it too often leads to a life-threatening shroud of silence, secrecy, and self-hatred. I’m here representing over one hundred fifty intersexals throughout North America.

One hundred fifty intersexuals are saying: Please! Listen! You doctors, you pediatric endocrinologists and urologists treating intersexuals, you nurses interacting with intersexuals and their families, listen to us! We understand intersexuality, not because we have studied the medical literature — although many of us have — not because we have performed surgeries, but because we have been grappling with intersexuality every day of our lives. We’re here to say that those who would have us believe that intersexuality is rare, cloud the issue by breaking us and separating us into narrow etiological categories which have little meaning in terms of our actual, lived experience. We’re here so that other intersexuals can find us — for many of us, finding others like ourselves has been a lifealtering, even life-saving, experience. We’re here to reach parents before their intersex child is born. We’re here to elicit the help of other sympathetic professionals. We can take a stand as openly intersex adults without being crushed by shame! And we did!

7:20 PM: Boston’s North End

Goddess, this is so sweet, so liberating! I was so reluctant a week ago, having my Jesus-in-Gethsemane experience, reluctant to accept — not an onus or responsibility but — to accept who I am. And here’s where the hard work really begins. I’m exhausted when I think of the road before us. But then, it’s nothing like the road behind us. 

Max Beck, 1997.

[totallyhussein-blog]

In a modern world, a fresh approach to care is needed

The most recent census data indicates there are 5.7 million unpaid carers across the UK, which represents around 9% of the population.

However, a Carers UK 2022 research report estimated that the number of unpaid carers could be as high as 10.6 million people.

As Dentons Law firm explain, the term "working carers" refers to employees who have caring responsibilities which have an impact on their working lives.

Working carers have responsibility for the care and support of relatives or friends who are older, disabled, physically or mentally ill and unable to care for themselves.

Helen Walker, chief executive of the national campaigning charity Carers UK, which set up and leads Carers Week has said;

“The shortage of care, lack of breaks and low carers’ benefits has left many feeling exhausted and at the end of their tether. Unpaid carers deserve better.”

An unpaid carer or working carer should never be confused with someone who works in either social care or for the NHS.

An unpaid carer is defined by the census as someone who looks after or supports anyone with a long-term physical or mental health conditions, illness or problems related to old age.

Helen Walker also called for a “step change in the way that Government and society supports and recognises carers”, adding employers can look at supporting employees who are juggling work and care.