Peter Clardy, MD, Director, Medical Intensive Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School:
"James Kelly provides an exceptionally thoughtful narrative of the modern intensive care unit. He characterizes the rhythms of the ICU and captures odd juxtapositions of the deeply emotional and highly technical, while he explores the complex history and unspoken social hierarchy of American hospitals. Through the experience of caring for critically ill patients and their families, he ultimately delivers a moving meditation on life and death."
Brian Hodges, MD, PhD, FRCPC, University of Toronto, coeditor of The Question of Competence: Reconsidering Medical Education in the Twenty-First Century:
"Where Night Is Day will be of interest to doctors, nurses, medical and nursing students, patients, and those interested in the organization of health care delivery. This excellent and compelling book marries theory to observation. James Kelly has created an intriguing presentation of social science thought about the health professions and illness, the socialization process of medical and nursing students, a clinical ethnographic study of life in an ICU, and an auto-ethnography."
Jessica Bylander:
"This revealing personal account blends the day-to-day drama of life in the ICU with a fascinating history of medicine, hospitals, nursing, and intensive care—told through the eyes of Kelly, a critical care nurse at Lovelace Women's Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, over a twelve-week period in the ICU..The evocative language puts the reader in Kelly’s shoes—in the halls and bedsides of the ICU."
Arthur W. Frank, author of The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics and Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology:
"James Kelly's ICU is a relentless and claustrophobic space where all the stories begin in the middle and only some have endings. His book is an exhilarating and humbling depiction of nursing in the twenty-first century."
"James Kelly's telling of life in an ICU provides a unique perspective on the daily realities of critical care professionals.... He seamlessly integrates the complexities of critical care and of the organizational politics surrounding the ICU. Experienced and novice health care professionals will find this work to be entertaining, humbling, and thought provoking, while lay readers can learn from the complex realities of critical care. Kelly perceptively articulates what it means to experience daily life and death in the critical care environment. His compelling story will capture your attention, cover to cover."
"This book is a must read for all nursing and medical students. Here, critical care nurse Kelly shares his experiences in an ICU in New Mexico over a 13-week period. He also perfectly describes the experiences of the ICU patients and their families—what they see, do, and reflect on during this time. Lastly, he discusses his interactions with physicians, and explains how nurses and doctors collaborate to accomplish the common goals of keeping patients comfortable, sedated, and alive. Kelly successfully depicts 'the good' and 'the bad' of ICUs. He tells the stories of individual patients and families, and describes the ICU subculture in a graphic, realistic manner. He conveys the nurse's perspective on the grueling experience of having to make life-and-death decisions on a daily basis. He clearly shows how emotional, and sometimes unemotional, a nurse must be to survive this type of professional setting.... Highly recommended."
