Category Archives: book reviews

The Monday Book: BETTER FOR BEING WITH YOU by Sister Bernie Kenny with Tauna Gulley

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The Monday Book: BETTER FOR BEING WITH YOU: A PHILOSOPHY OF CARE by Sister Bernie Kenny and Tauna Gulley, FNP

Tauna Gulley is the author of this review. BETTER FOR BEING WITH YOU is about one of SWVA’s most beloved heroes. Gulley is also a chapter author in the forthcoming book HIGH HOPES, McFarland Press (Appalachian prescribers and therapists responding to the opioid crisis) and a longstanding friend of Wendy’s.

sister bernieBetter for Being with You focuses on the life and work of Sister Bernie Kenny of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. The Medical Missionaries of Mary are a group of women religious who serve where the needs are the greatest.   After being trained in Ireland as a nurse mid-wife, Sister Bernie traveled to Tanzania, Ethiopia and Oakland, California where she cared for diverse groups of people. Then, in 1978 Sister Bernie was called to the Appalachian area and settled in the small mining town of Clinchco, Virginia.  Bernie’s specialty was women and children; she had delivered more than 2,000 babies while in Africa so immediately after arriving in Clinchco, Bernie recognized there was a need for these specialty services.  In addition, there was no hospital in the county. When specialty care was needed, individuals had to travel for miles, sometimes up to 2 hours, to see a doctor.

After much thought and prayer, Bernie decided it would be best to take the care to the people who needed it so she traveled around the hollers and hills in a Volkswagon Beetle visiting people in their homes, taking their blood pressure, counting their heart rate and measuring their temperature or just listening to their stories. This was the beginning of the Health Wagon, a mobile health unit that is still operating today.

 

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Tauna Gulley

This book also provides the reader with suggestions about ways to maintain a busy schedule while taking the time to enjoy life. Daily meditation and prayer are suggested.  Questions are placed at the end of each chapter to encourage the reader to develop their own philosophy related to self-care and the care of others. Students in the service related disciplines will find this book helpful as care for individuals in rural areas is unique and holistic care of the individual is imperative.  Important concepts for providers to consider include respect, readiness to teach and learn and being resourceful. There are times when items or services are not available in rural areas but quality care must be delivered. This book helps us understand how we can maintain quality without compromising effective care.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Monday Book: THE COST OF COURAGE by Charles Kaiser

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The Monday book comes to us courtesy of Paul Garrett this week. Enjoy!

courage Charles Kaiser’s work, The Cost of Courage (Other Press, 2015) focuses on one Parisian family during the occupation of France from 1941-45. Of the six family members, three fought in the resistance but all paid the price.

At the beginning of the occupation, the parents, Jacques and Helene Bulloche are upper middle-class professionals. Their two sons Andre and Robert work for the French government. Their daughters Christiane and Jacqueline are in school. The three youngest children all join the resistance. Andre pays for his decision by being shot, tortured and eventually put in a concentration camp, which he survives.  The two sisters play supporting roles; ferrying messages and contraband weapons around Paris.  As the war draws to a close, their parents and older brother are all arrested and sent to Germany to be tortured (Helene is eventually waterboarded). None of the three survive.

The surviving siblings rarely talked about their experiences. One example to the contrary was when Andre gave his only daughter Agnes chilling advice after she was beaten during a protest march.

“…If you carry a weapon it is always to kill. Do not think it is to defend yourself. If you draw your weapon never get closer than three meters from the person you want to kill, because otherwise he can take your weapon from you.”

Though he had a successful political career after the war, Andre never fully recovered. He always wore a crew cut and black necktie in memory of those who did not survive. He was brutal to his children and filled with rage which he took out on other drivers. Christiane never spoke of her war years until, as an elderly woman, she wrote a 45-page memoir which was part of the genesis of this book. The  work reminds us that often  in war even the winners lose, and the cost of courage is sometimes nearly too much to bear.  This is a great book for anyone interested in the unsung heroes of the war.