Theresa Brown, RN, left academia and her post teaching English at an elite university to pursue a career in nursing. She wrote about her nursing experiences in The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives, which became a New York Times bestseller. In The Shift, Brown lets readers experience a day in an oncology ward of a busy teaching hospital. The book offers a revealing look at the struggles of one nurse, the challenges faced by her patients, and some larger truths about health care in this country.

Theresa is a frequent New York Times contributor, writing on subjects such as nurse-to-patient ratios, healthcare reform, bullying by physicians, and the importance of end-of-life care. Her writing has also appeared on CNN.com, Salon.com, Slate, and in The American Journal of Nursing, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She has been a guest on MSNBC Live and NPR’s Fresh Air.

Theresa’s latest book, Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient, is a powerful and intensely personal story about her own breast cancer diagnosis and treatment as well as a searing look at patient care. She is a frequent speaker at hospitals, nursing conferences, and universities where she lectures on issues related to nursing, health care, and end of life.