A book review from San Franciscan RN and Blogger, Kim McAlllister. 

The Blog: 

http://www.emergiblog.com/2008/02/inspiredand-fired.html,

is recognized as one of 

10 BEST WEBLOGS by FoxNews.com

A 2006 Nominee for:

BEST HEALTH WEBLOG

BEST LITERARY MEDICAL WEBLOG

Adrienne Zurub spent 26 years of her life as a member of the Cleveland Clinic open heart/heart transplant surgery team.

A couple of weeks ago, after almost three decades of professional nursing in thepremier heart surgery center, she was fired.

Why?

She wrote a book.

This book.

It’s a book about, well, Adrienne Zurub! A “half-century grrl”, registered nurse, wife, spoken-word poet, mother, stand-up comic, daughter and writer.

Through stories and vignettes, she describes people, places and events that shaped her growth in all these areas.

It’s natural that some of these vignettes would be be about her time on the prestigious heart surgery service.

And the characters that populate the cardiac surgery suites. Doctors, patients and nurses.

*****

I had to know what ticked off Cleveland Clinic so badly that they felt they had to terminate Adrienne’s employment.

After all, this book isn’t about Cleveland Clinic, it’s about Adrienne.

Does Cleveland Clinic have a institutional ego problem or was Adrienne off-the-wall?

I decided to buy the book and judge for myself.

I’m glad I got it when I did - amazon.com sold out of it right after I ordered it!

I read it in one sitting.

*****

Was it because she was brutally honest about the environment she worked in, the team she worked with?

The brilliant and the arrogant? The skilled and the misogynistic? The exhausted and the doormats?

Surgeons yelling at nurses? Surgeons yelling at patients? Patients yelling at surgeons?

What did Cleveland Clinic find objectionable about the fact that the heart team is comprised of unbelievably talented, dedicated doctors and nurses who are inherently human… and, rarely, all too fallible?

*****

Maybe it was the patient stories.

Surely these are composites. Twenty-six years of surgery experience would tend to provide a lot of samples.

Was it the patient who tried to conduct the OR? The one who told a surgeon to go-to-hell by a rather extraordinary feat?

Or the ones that made my throat and eyes burn as I tried not to cry so I could finish the story?

Which ones did Cleveland Clinic disapprove of?

*****

Then again, maybe it’s the fact that despite “magnet” status, Cleveland Clinic does not treat their nurses with the same respect and deference they show to the doctors.

A keychain here, a water bottle there, an occasional T-shirt instead of decent pay and benefits.

Or the fact that a fancy chicken dinner and a watch is considered a big treat after twenty-five years and Adrienne wasn’t buying into it.

Cleveland Clinic couldn’t possibly have been upset with that. They certainly don’t have the copyright on paying lip service to how much they value their nurses and then treating them like so much chattel.

*****

Adrienne herself describes the book as “provocative” and it is!

And yet, it is not an “in-your-face” diatribe, it is more like a “face-to-face” look at an intelligent, funny fifty-something nurse with opinions on pretty much everything, including her time as an RN at the Cleveland Clinic.

They say nursing has no “voice”. Well, Adrienne has one. And she is paying the price for it.

I hope she laughs all the way to the bank with her writing and her stand-up comedy.

She deserves success.

Buy the book.

And if you are put off by honest, humorous, poignant, earthy, “provocative” literature with an “adult” word here and there…..

Author, Comedian, Speaker, and a  former member of the Open Heart/Heart Transplant team at Cleveland Clinic, has penned a book that details some cracks in the glossy facade of how nurses are treated and regarded 'really' by the staff doctors.

Ms. Zurub, does not complain nor whine. Instead, she  seeks to define the power and team effort of not just nurses but a concert of professionals who make the world-class institution what it is!



RELEASE:
The book, 'Notes From the Mothership The Naked Invisibles' by Author, Adrienne Zurub, is set to be released January 2008 (available in bookstores in February 2008)

This nonfiction work is a kind of 'Shawshank Redemption' for this multi-talented RN on the Open Heart/Heart Transplant team for the past twenty-five years. Yet, the book is layered with personal experiences outside of the blood and guts of Cleveland Clinic. This works offers the deep insight into the very attentive life of Adrienne Zurub. We are privy to the deeply personal without the stench of voyeurism.



RELEASE:POSTPONED!
Author, Adrienne Zurub will have a booksigning at:
JOSEPH-BETH BOOKSELLERS
@ Legacy Village
24519 Cedar Road
Lyndhurst, Ohio  44124
APRIL 2008
TO BE ANNOUNCED!

 Check out Adrienne Zurub's sites:

    http://adriennezurub.typepad.com

    http://best.nonfictionbook.ever.com

http://sexiest.bookcover.ever.com
http://funniest.openheartnurseatccfEVER.ever.com

http://coolest.authoroverachievercomedianpoetcardiacbitchariesgrownazzwoman.ever.com






 Biographical Information Below:

   Adrienne Zurub aka UBU (you be YOU!) Zurub, the stand up comedian, is a Actor/Comedian/Speaker/Writer/Spoken Word POeT and Registered Nurse on the Open Heart team at Cleveland Clinic.

As UBU, she has performed stand up at The Hollywood Improv-Melrose, for Industry at the California Comedy Conference, at Stand Up New York, Gothams’ Comedy Club, The New York Comedy Club, Carolines, Don’t Tell Mama, The Cleveland Improv, and  numerous venues (also known as hell holes) in between both coasts.
She participated in the Guiness Book World record for the longest running Stand Up Comedy show at the Cleveland Hiliarities; fifty-two hours of Stand Up!

Her accomplishments in theater include writing and performing her solo performance pieces at Cleveland Public Theater with noted playwright Sarah Morton; performing at the historical Karamu Theater in Arenafest; and performing in The Manhattan Monologue Slam in New York City.
 
She appeared in “SpiderMan 3” which filmed in Cleveland. Other film work include  Director Jason Tomaric’s films, “The World without US” and “The Overcoat.” As well as, the movie, “The Lords of Praxton”by Producer-Director, Peter Fields; and a film by British Director Brendon Connelly entitled “Grey Goo” Adrienne is featured in “Attrition” an Independent motion picture that premiered at The New York Film Festival and the Ohio Film Festival as well.

She was one of three finalists for Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights 2006. She was a winner two years in a row in the prolific ‘National Novel Writing Month’ (NaNoWriMo)

Offically, UBU is declared, “...one of the funniest women in America” in Judi Brown’s book, “She’s So Funny,” a compilation of the best jokes from women comedians, in which some of her jokes are published!

Adrienne participated in Tellabration,the National Storytelling Event, where her rich stories and poetry were described as, “Great!” “Exuberant!” ”Spirited!”