Managing to Nurse: Inside Canada's Health Care Reform

Ian W. Toal is a registered nurse in Winnipeg.

Managing to Nurse examines how the past 30 years of hospital
restructuring has affected both nursing practice and nursing attitudes
within the hospital setting. The book chronicles decades of care maps,
regulated admissions and discharges, the quantifying of how much nursing
time is enough, and a growing emphasis on efficiency and cost cutting,
The ultimate result, according to the authors, is that nurses who are
“trained to care for people” are “now being taught, coached and
persuaded that it is their professional duty to nurse the
organization.”

As an academic study, Managing to Nurse is extremely detailed in its
analysis and often arcane in its language. Even for someone familiar
with both hospitals and nursing, the text is often difficult to follow.
Though the book does offer valuable insights into the consequences of
hospital restructuring for the nursing profession, its audience will
likely be a limited one, and that is a shame.