Not Your Average Nurse
The Entertaining True Story of a Student Nurse in 1970s London
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Narrated by:
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Catherine Milte
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By:
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Maggie Groff
About this listen
Award-winning novelist Maggie Groff shares stories of her richly varied and at times unusual former nursing career.
'Over time, I nursed victims of war, the posh, the poor, the famous and the infamous.... Oh, the stories I can tell!'
To a young girl, the life of a student nurse sounds exciting, but with long hours and short shrift it's never easy. So when Maggie Groff embarks as a student nurse at London's King's College Hospital, she must quickly get to grips with the demands of her chosen career. It's sink or swim.
In a delightful romp through time, played out against the march of feminism and the fashion, music and movies of almost half a century ago, we follow Maggie's highs and lows as, with trial and much error, she becomes a highly skilled nurse and sets sail for a new life in Australia.
From the watchful gaze of stern ward sisters and the ordeals of nursing at a poor housing estate to becoming an industrial nurse at the iconic Sydney Opera House, Maggie shares her stories of mistakes and mayhem, tea and sympathy and the life-affirming moments that make it all worthwhile.
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- Unabridged
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When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
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Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
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GI Brides
- The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love
- By: Duncan Barrett, Nuala Calvi
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The "friendly invasion" of Britain by over a million American G.I.s bewitched a generation of young women deprived of male company during the Second World War. With their exotic accents, smart uniforms, and aura of Hollywood glamour, the G.I.s easily conquered their hearts, leaving British boys fighting abroad green with envy. But for girls like Sylvia, Margaret, Gwendolyn, and even the skeptical Rae, American soldiers offered something even more tantalizing than chocolate, chewing gum, and nylon stockings: An escape route from Blitz-ravaged Britain.
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Wonderful true stories of very brave women
- By Cindy on 05-12-15
By: Duncan Barrett, and others
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The Cider House Rules
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 24 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of America's most beloved and respected writers comes the classic story of Homer Wells, an orphan, and Wilbur Larch, a doctor without children of his own, who develop an extraordinary bond with one another.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-02-07
By: John Irving
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A Woman of Firsts
- The midwife who built a hospital and changed the world
- By: Edna Adan Ismail, Wendy Holden
- Narrated by: Edna Adan Ismail
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Edna saw first-hand how poor healthcare, lack of education and ancient superstitions had devastating effects on Somaliland’s people, especially its women. When she suffered the trauma of FGM herself as a young girl at the bidding of her mother, Edna’s determination was set.
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Author Read and So Moving
- By Clementa Frederiksen on 03-04-24
By: Edna Adan Ismail, and others
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Ask Me Why I Hurt
- The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
- By: Randy Christensen M.D., Rene Denfeld
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The unforgettable inspiring memoir of one extraordinary doctor who is saving lives in a most unconventional way, Ask Me Why I Hurt is the touching and revealing first-person account of the remarkable work of Dr. Randy Christensen. Trained as a pediatrician, he works not in a typical hospital setting but, rather, in a 38-foot Winnebago that has been refitted as a doctor's office on wheels. His patients are the city's homeless adolescents and children.
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The reality of our streets
- By SusanInTheMidwest on 08-26-17
By: Randy Christensen M.D., and others
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Silver Wattle
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In fear for their lives after the sudden death of their mother, Adéla and Klára must flee Prague to find refuge with their uncle in Australia. Later, Adéla becomes a film director at a time when the local industry is starting to feel the competition from Hollywood. But even while success is imminent, the issues of family and an impossible love are never far away.
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Groan, Snore and Wince!
- By OrangeWisteria on 02-12-12
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The Things We Never Said
- By: Susan Elliot Wright
- Narrated by: Kate Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1964, Maggie wakes to find herself in a mental asylum, with no idea who she is or how she got there. Remnants of memories swirl in her mind - a familiar song, a storm, a moment of violence. Slowly, she begins to piece together the past and the events which brought her to this point.
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Disappointing
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-22
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Hero: A Simon Serrailler Short Story
- By: Susan Hill
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 51 mins
- Unabridged
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When Simon Serrailler was a rookie constable with the Met, he did something reckless in the course of a night's work which caused a man's death. But his act was praised by his colleagues, and he was called a hero. Years later, now a detective chief superintendent who has been badly injured in the course of duty, he receives a medal for bravery at Buckingham Palace while recollecting that fateful night of his early career, when chance disguised itself as bravery.
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This 'story' makes no sense to me
- By Pamela Donaldson on 05-10-17
By: Susan Hill
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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Deep in the Valley
- Grace Valley, Book 1
- By: Robyn Carr
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Grace Valley, California - where blood runs thicker…ties are stronger…and love is all the more sweet. Visitors to the town often remark about the valley's peace and beauty - both of which are plentiful. Unlocked doors, front porches, pies cooling in the windows - this is country life at its finest. But visitors don't always see what lies at the heart of a community. Or just beyond.… June Hudson grew up in Grace Valley, the daughter of the town doctor. Leaving only to get her medical training, she returned home and followed in her father's footsteps.
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A Marriage Made in Heaven
- By Robbie on 04-16-13
By: Robyn Carr
What listeners say about Not Your Average Nurse
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Vicki
- 08-14-22
Excellent, touching, funny and heartfelt
Wonderful account of life of a NHS student nurse and her very varied travel , work and life experience starting in 1970’s in UK!
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- Lori
- 09-30-19
Interesting step back in time
I enjoyed this audiobook, especially since I was a nursing student in America in the late 1970's and am an Anglophile. This was a well written story, partly very funny; partly sad, but always true to reality regarding the nursing profession from my perspective. I noted similarities and vast differences in my own experiences as I listened to her antics and stories about her student years and beyond. Interestingly, the author relates all that is noble in nursing to the NHS and fails to do the same regarding poor working conditions and low pay, both of which dismayed the young nurse upon entering the profession. I’m not sure why she felt the need to malign the historical viewpoint, still shared by many, that nursing is a calling or vocation, but she did. Despite these facts, I would buy another of her books should she write again.
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- Karen G
- 09-13-22
Excellent
Her account of being a nurse to a full fledged nurse is lively, humorous at a fine pace. The performance was well done. I recommend this book to anyone loving medical stories. A thumbs up!
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- Leah
- 06-03-17
Wonderful. Nursing has come a long way!
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I loved this story. I learned a lot about how far nurses have come. There was no drama-just a peaceful telling of the life and strides a nurse took from the beginning of her career. Now the author's daughter will have everything important about her Mom's nursing career down on paper to pass down to her own children.
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3 people found this helpful
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- mz
- 03-11-18
Boring, Uneventful, and Privileged
Not Your Average Nurse, certainly not your average book. Your below-average book, more like. The whole thing is uneventful, boring, and shallow. There are only a few stories of nursing that are a little interesting and worth reading. The rest of it is superficial, with overly exaggerated humor every other sentence that became boring after a short while. Sadly, such exaggerated humor is the only thing in the book that would even keep your attention at all.
She talks about conversations in the pub with her friends, going to the beach on vacations, wearing tight jeans to concerts, drinking at parties, boyfriends and patients she's attracted to, and the such. You'd think that if these things are worth her putting into a book, she'd have nothing good to say.
And she didn't.
Memoirs usually aren't literal memoirs, but this is just that. If you want to read the diary of a 18-22 year old girl, this might be the thing. The entire first 5 hours - half of the book - were about her first 2 years in nursing school. With no organization of particularly touching stories or any categorization of information. It just follows her from ward to ward, a few months each, as she does her rotation. They're different alright, but none of them stand out particularly. I'm just not really into this, as I don't personally know her, and none of her life stories are that interesting, so I'm not attracted to her diary.
If you're looking for a book with real interesting, heart-wrenching, emotional stories of not only nursing but the state of the society as a whole, from a broader and maturer point of view than a girl in her early 20s, check out Call the Midwife. If you've finished Call the Midwife and are here looking for something similar, you will most likely be very bored.
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3 people found this helpful