First in line How COVID-19 placed me on the frontlines of a health care crisis

Sandra Lindsay

Book - 2024

The author relates her personal experiences and observations surrounding the health care system, first emigrating from Jamaica to the Bronx, New York, studying for and becoming a nurse, then advancing to become the Director of the critical care unit at Northwell Health's Long Island Jewish Medical Center, leading the unit through the Covid crisis and becoming the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Saved in:

2nd Floor New Shelf Show me where

610.73092/Lindsay
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf 610.73092/Lindsay (NEW SHELF) Checked In
Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York ; Nashville : Post Hill Press [2024]
Language
English
Main Author
Sandra Lindsay (author)
Other Authors
Joanne Skerrett (author)
Physical Description
viii, 262 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9798888452769
9798888452776
  • Note from Sandra
  • Part I. The Big Picture
  • Chapter 1. Medal Ceremony
  • Chapter 2. Seven Men in Chronic Distress
  • Chapter 3. My Anti-Vax Friends
  • Part II. Coming to America
  • Chapter 4. Coming to America
  • Chapter 5. Life in the Boogie Down Bronx
  • Chapter 6. Privilege to Pauper: My Father
  • Chapter 7. Privilege to Pauper: My Weekend in the Hamptons
  • Chapter 8. My First Virus
  • Chapter 9. Teenage Angst
  • Chapter 10. Playing Nurse
  • Chapter 11. You Have to Run
  • Chapter 12. RN in the Flesh
  • Chapter 13. Motherhood and Marriage
  • Chapter 14. Building Confidence as a Leader
  • Chapter 15. Step by Step
  • Chapter 16. Serving, Caring, Leading
  • Part III. The COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Chapter 17. The Longest Wave
  • Chapter 18. Ringing in 2020
  • Chapter 19. The First Wave
  • Chapter 20. The Surge and Surge B
  • Chapter 21. Good Times, Bad Times
  • Chapter 22. Summer of 2020
  • Chapter 23. Here Comes the Sun
  • Chapter 24. On Nursing and Burnout
  • Part IV. What We Are Up Against
  • Chapter 25. A History of Mistrust
  • Chapter 26. Taking the Vaccine
  • Chapter 27. Chronic Disease in Our Communities
  • Chapter 28. Widening Boundaries of Chronic Disease
  • Chapter 29. My Experience with Implicit Bias in Health Care
  • Chapter 30. Infant and Maternal Care: Protecting Mothers and Babies
  • Chapter 31. Strong and Vulnerable: Carrying the Burden of Racism
  • Chapter 32. I'm Not Your Superwoman: Burning the Cape
  • Chapter 33. On Our Own: Not the Way It's Supposed to Be
  • Part V. The Power of Possibility
  • Chapter 34. Passing It Down, Paying It Forward
  • Chapter 35. The Power of Possibility: From Grassroots to the Top
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A hospital executive and nursing director discusses her path "from immigrant to COVID-19 vaccine evangelists." In December 2020, Lindsay became the first North American to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. This courageous act, along with the compassionate intelligence she demonstrated while skillfully shepherding a Long Island critical care center through the chaotic early pandemic, earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom two years later. But the path that took her from nurse to respected vaccine advocate and hospital executive was filled with challenges that stemmed from her immigrant status, race, and gender. Born in Jamaica to a respected family, Lindsay immigrated to New York City as a young woman in 1986. As she struggled financially in her new country, she faced discrimination everywhere--from patrons at the grocery store where she worked to the nurses where she gave birth to her son in 1989. Painful as these experiences were, they also helped her develop empathy for marginalized people and became the wellspring on which Lindsay drew as she pursued her nursing education. Her personal experiences also encouraged an interest in the health challenges that disproportionately plague minorities--and especially female ones--in American society. "Battling back the stereotypes, hostilities, and discriminatory behavior can have serious physical effects on our bodies," she writes. Indeed, working on the frontlines of the health care system during the pandemic, Lindsay witnessed for herself how people of color died in far greater numbers than white patients. Despite so much public resistance to vaccination--especially within marginalized communities--she believes hope lies in a governmental grassroots effort to meet "people where they are, and [listen] to their concerns." Lindsay's book will be of particular interest to anyone seeking to create greater equity in a flawed, often racist American health care system. Candid, informative, and cautiously optimistic. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.