Journal of a Black Queer Nurse
Reviews
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"Daniels tells true stories from her years as a black, queer nurse, deftly pointing out her real-life experiences of how systemic racism plagues American society and our healthcare system, and the implications of this for everyone. She deals constantly with white co-workers' internal biases and shows how important empathy is in nursing. A 5-star read."
Goodreads Review
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"...Each vignette is processed down to its core elements, like journal entries; Daniels makes mention of the actual journals she kept while working during this time period, which is where the material for this book came from. Daniels has efficiently streamlined her writing, and these chapters tell many different stories, like memories, in little, distilled moments. From the hospital in Texas, where they are so short-staffed that Daniels is made to work twelve-hour shifts without a break, to the intoxicated and belligerent patients in Southern California who yell racial slurs at her, Daniels' is consistently engaging, but also thoughtful. She constantly asks, would this have happened to me if I was not a Black woman? and often, the answer is no. This question animates the whole book, and as we learn more about her experiences, we see how the entire health system is peppered with inequity...
Joanna Acevedo, Foglifter Press
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"I picked this book up for educational purposes (potentially switching career fields) and am so glad I did. Reading Britney's stories throughout the early days of her nursing career, while being constantly surrounded by racist assholes truly exposed me to systemic racism within the health/medical industry. I learned so much through this book, with the most important lesson being to stand up for what you believe in and for those who you believe in. I don't know if you actually read these reviews, but from one Brit (t) to another, thank you."
Goodreads Review
OUT MAY 9TH FROM COMMON NOTIONS
In this searing, honest memoir, a Black queer emergency-room nurse works the front lines of care during COVID-19.
Britney Daniels is a Black, masculine-presenting, tattooed lesbian from a working-class background. For the last five years, she has been working as an emergency-room nurse. She began Journal of a Black Queer Nurse as a personal diary, a tool to heal from the day-to-day traumas of seeing too much and caring too much.
Hilarious, gut-wrenching, and infuriating by turns, these stories are told from the perspective of a deeply empathetic, no-nonsense young nurse, who highlights the way race, inequality, and a profit-driven healthcare system make the hospital a place where systemic racism is lived.
Whether it is giving one’s own clothes to a homeless patient, sticking up for patients of color in the face of indifference from white doctors and nurses, or nursing one’s own back pain accrued from transporting too many bodies as the morgues overflowed during the pandemic, Journal of a Black Queer Nurse reveals the ways in which care is much more than treating a physical body and how the commitment to real care—care that involves listening to and understanding patients in a deeper sense—demands nurses, especially nurses of color, must also be warriors.