Professional Women

Before she even turned 40, Florence Nightingale was the darling of the British public, the heroine of the Crimea. She could have sailed home to England and comfortably lived out her days. Instead she conducted a postmortem on every moment of her wartime service. She sought to broadcast her mistakes so everyone would understand what happens in unsanitary medical facilities. One hundred and fifty years ago, the respect we now have for nurses and the intense training that nurses must undergo was nothing but a seed in Florence Nightingale's imagination.

William’s memoir, The Parts of Him I Kept, is an intimate account of a daughter’s coming of age in the face of her father’s schizophrenic unraveling. Williams investigates the limits of our medical and cultural understanding of schizophrenia while chronicling the shared burden and benefits of caring for a mentally ill family member.

In part one, experience the painful, tragic story of Julia's upbringing, and how she was born into the house of a cult leader in Pennsylvania. Feel her passion and energy come alive as she pursues bold, money-making ideas at a young age, eventually building a brand. Hear about the night she escaped his house, in 2012 at 21-years-old.

In telling the history of women in medicine, the pioneers are rightly remembered and celebrated in books, articles, memorials, awards, names of buildings, and organizations. In contrast, the generation who began the transition from minority status to the current numerical equity are seldom memorialized, yet without the efforts of these few determined women in what was unambiguously a male profession, the achievements of these pioneers could easily have withered.

When she arrives at the hotel for her business trip, Alice is dismayed that she left her vibrator at home, and eventually she decides she’ll just head out and buy one. Unfortunately, she ends up lost in the hotel hallways. On the other hand…maybe it’s not so unfortunate. She ends up walking in on a hotel employee and catches him watching porn. Before she knows it, this horny professional is in the middle of crazy sex with a stranger and this stranger wants her ass!

The summer of 1959 promises to stretch slowly forward, with one exception. The looming deadline of entering the Saint John General Hospital school of nursing as a probationer student, interrupts the worry-free days with a nagging doubt. Is nursing the right choice? Self-doubt is mingled with preparation in advance of the date of entry while Francene gets more jittery as the day approaches. She was born to nurse but did not know it yet.

Barbara Melvin has a secret to her success: her five Ps. And never were they more important than the day she woke up in her Naples, Florida home, blind. In the blink of an eye, life changed.

A manifesto on what it takes to be a true professional in the modern world. By common definition, a professional is anyone who possesses the skills and knowledge necessary for a career-whether as a surgeon, a software engineer, or a plumber. But according to Subroto Bagchi, our increasingly...

New Year's Eve 2020 was supposed to be a turning point to better days for twenty-nine-year-old Katie Coleman. Instead, she found herself in the ER processing the earth-shattering news of a stage IV cancer diagnosis, one that had come after years of being assured she was "too young for cancer" and a repeated misdiagnosis of anxiety. Too Young for Cancer tells the story of Katie's journey from diagnosis with an ultra-rare cancer through treatment, recovery, and a life-altering shift in perspective.

Sally Ride, the first American woman to go to space, once said that she didn’t set out to be a role model, but after her first flight, she realized that she was one. Like her, the 12 women scientists in this collection became unintentional heroes through perseverance and hard work, making great discoveries in all areas of science. From Vera Rubin’s examination of the internal dynamics of galaxies to Nobel Prize winner May-Britt Moser’s study of the brain’s GPS-like navigation system, Trailblazers highlights the achievements of women who became role models for us all.

Growing up in poverty, and neglected and abused by her own mother and stepfather, Jaz Ampaw-Farr was destined to become a statistic. Her story was changed, however, by five teachers who made a point of putting human connection first, despite the challenges of the education system. Because of these people, Jaz went on to become a teacher, writer and award-winning international speaker who, through celebration and provocation, engages educators and galvanises them into embracing the difference that they can make when they, too, put being a human first.

In Vera Rubin: A Life, Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton provide a detailed, accessible overview of Rubin's work, showing how she leveraged immense curiosity, profound intelligence, and novel technologies to help transform our understanding of the cosmos. But Rubin's impact was not limited to her contributions to scientific knowledge. She also helped to transform scientific practice by promoting the careers of women researchers. Not content to be an inspiration, Rubin was a mentor and champion for hiring women faculty and honoring them with awards historically exclusive to men.

The real-life Cinderella story of the very first professional woman astronomer—Caroline Herschel! Comet Chaser is the thrilling biography of a woman who made a lifetime of incredible contributions to science. She was the first woman to discover a comet, the first officially recognized in a scientific role, and the first to be given a Gold Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society.

From wartime nutrition science to modern food activism, Six Women Who Shaped What Americans Eat examines the pivotal roles six women played in rewriting the rules of American cuisine. Michelle Mart offers a rich and accessible narrative that connects dietary trends, food marketing, and public health movements to the voices of the women who helped drive them.

Being the first is never easy. Taking a company public on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange is even more of a challenge. But being the first woman of Indian origin to take a company public in the United States? That takes a whole new level of grit. This is Vinita Gupta’s story.

Virtually every big name in wrestling in the second half of the 20th Century crossed paths with "Ms. Christine," as she was known to most. If they followed her rules, Christine "Teeny" Jarrett probably taught them a thing or two about staying out of trouble and saving money for a rainy day. If they got out of line, they likely faced The Grip. Over the course of her 50-year career in wrestling, Teeny worked her way from selling tickets in the back of a Nashville, Tennessee shoe store to running a network of towns for Nick Gulas and Roy Welch...

Danielle Perreault a neuf ans la première fois qu’elle souhaite s’expatrier: son père s’est fait offrir un poste à la nouvelle Université du Rwanda et, pour elle, c’est tout décidé : ils partent en Afrique ! Mais son père, à sa grande déception, refuse... Dix ans plus tard, toujours attirée par l’aventure, elle part enseigner au Togo. Elle reçoit un salaire de vingt dollars par mois, mais elle est logée, nourrie, et on lui fournit la mobylette. Que demander de plus?!

In When There Are Two Patients in One Body, an experienced Labor and Delivery nurse shares a collection of birth stories, some joyful and others harrowing, that reveal profound life lessons from one of the most intense human experiences. While babies arrive either by vaginal delivery or caesarean section, each birth unfolds uniquely, whether as a momentous and thrilling event or an unexpected and life altering ordeal. This book follows the author's career, presenting a chronological journey through a diverse array of births, each story interwoven with her personal reflections.

After years of hearing that she was an inspiration to family and friends, Heather decided to strive to inspire a larger audience by writing. Citing a lifetime of personal experiences, she gives her listeners an inside look at her world of insane medical drama, PTSD, pain, grief, and loss. She shares that the only way she has learned to accept each situation she has had to endure was to allow herself time to grieve. She knows that the only way to find lasting peace in the midst of life's many storms may require going through the grief cycle over and over again.

In this must-listen book for any practitioner, carer or patient, Eleanor Oyston shares her story of bringing oncology massage to Australia. After many years as a scientist, Eleanor went from diagnosing cancer in a lab to massaging clients with a variety of medical conditions. Very quickly, she witnessed the amazing benefits and knew she wanted to spread the word.