National Nurses United

In addition to antibiotic overuse, Dr. Blaser also discusses the increased costs. Many redundant rounds of antibiotics become nec- essary when resistant bacteria arises. What Blaser fails to address is the hospital administration's and health industry's role in overprescribing antibiotics and c-sections. Short-term, individual-case recovery incentivizes hospitals to rec- ommend antibiotic overuse. Antibiotics are often given "just in case" even when medical professionals have not yet determined whether there is a clinical need. Hospitals want the concentrated benefit of an assured, short-term solution. But that solution may have diffuse consequences for all of us. "Modern plagues" may arise, and nurses at the bedside are on the front lines. Antibiotics also kill beneficial bacteria, and once these are dead they may be gone from our bodies for good. Can we admit that modern antibiotic overuse could lead to severe health conse- quences? If so, we can change course. We can change our practices. We can develop new, targeted antibiotics. Our microbiomes are microscopic wildlife sanctuaries within us, and we wipe them out at our own peril. —Kate Usher Run, Don't Walk: The Curious and Chaotic Life of a Physical Therapist Inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center By Adele Levine, PT Avery, 2014 There's a moment in Run, Don't Walk, when physical therapist Adele Levine is in the chaos of the Fishbowl—the amputee rehab clinic at Walter Reed Medical Center—and her boss, the selfless and workaholic Capt. Dumont, sucks in her breath and reads aloud a headline: "Eight Killed in Afghanistan." She knew what that meant: In 72 hours, badly mangled soldiers, some with two, three, even four amputations, would arrive at her clinic to try to learn to walk again. And they did. In the years Levine worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the number of veterans grew, as did the amputa- tions. And as soon as their condition stabilized, they began working with physical therapists like Levine to regain mobility. If you have wondered what it's like to be at the epicenter of healing those wounded by our wars, Run, Don't Walk will tell you. It's a harrowing job. One patient introduced himself by saying, "I was 21 when I killed my first man." Levine quips, "This was some- thing physical therapy school doesn't teach you" to deal with. Once, after pushing hard to break the scar tissue that would keep his leg from bending the rest of his life, and seeing her patient's eyes tear up in agony, she lost it. She headed to Home Depot to soothe herself by buying a rug she'd been admiring for weeks online, only to have lane after lane of cashiers close their stations. "I was stupid," she wrote. "For trying so hard to pay for a rug that no one wanted to sell me. For the 10 hours a day I spent work- ing with patients who would never really get 100 percent better." But it would be inaccurate to say that the book is heavy on heart- break. Run, Don't Walk is imbued with the kind of gallows humor familiar to any RN. Jokes about "ugly stumps," taunting patients to "walk pretty," and funny voices abound. Levine does a great job of showing how PTs cope with the barrage of young men and women starting life over again. She makes the absurdity fun: the Beltway blowhards who blovi- ate about traumatic brain injury while she works with those patients; the triple amputees who never complain and work hard to get better while the retired veteran with a sprained ankle can't seem to get better ("There are always people who view themselves as a vic- tim, and victims never get better."); the absurdity of looking up to see Angelina Jolie or the cast of Reno 911! staring back at her from the TV through the glass of the Fishbowl. And then there were the clowns, the very un-funny clowns. Early in the book, Levine is excited that 50 clowns would be visit- ing the Fishbowl, intrigued by how "so many clowns [will] squeeze into the clinic, even though squeezing into small places is a clown specialty." When they did arrive, there were five, not 50, and Levine quipped, "The only clown in the clinic seemed to be me." While Levine is enjoyable to read, the book has holes. Too many people "throw their head back and roar with laughter" in the book; she overuses phrases she likes. It's also clear that the book mostly cobbles together disparate anecdotes. The central arc revolves around one patient, a composite character she calls Cosmo. Without J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 1 4 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 23

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