Along her 30 year nursing career path, Kathy Mercurio has been privileged to learn some of life's most important lessons. Often, the "teachers" were unsuspecting, unintentional educators in the form of patients, their family members and friends. Join Kathy in learning and sharing some light moments, dark days and hard-learned lessons in the pages of this intimate look at the Art of Nursing and the Life's Lessons that are imparted.

Barbara Maddox was living a fairly normal and happy existence. Newly married, she was reaching the pinnacle of success as a regional sales manager at a large corporation and enjoying a fun social life with family and friends. And then her body started to betray her with what she thought were work-related, stress-induced health problems. After several months of worsening symptoms and a frustrating search for answers, she found herself in the emergency room one Sunday afternoon, completely exhausted and missing half of her blood. Within two hours of testing and prodding, she learned her fate: Cancer had spread throughout her lymph nodes. Mashed Potatoes and Gravy is Barb's brave and poignant accounting of how she managed through months of aggressive chemotherapy, three hospital stays, two serious blood infections, and acute mental depression. Along the way she discovers the importance of love, family, and friends as her spiritual world expands and she asks some deep, penetrating questions about life and our very existence. Written with raw emotion, and sprinkled with a good dose of humor, her story will leave readers inspired as they cheer her on through the unpredictable twists and turns on her journey toward conquering stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Dr. Stribling was only twenty-six years old in 1836 when he became head of Western State hospital. Then, every institution for the insane in the South, and all but a very few in the remainder of the country, were little more than penitentiaries. Dr. Robert Hansen, superintendent of Western State Hospital, wrote in 1967, "In an age of the common man, Dr. Stribling possessed an uncommon and profound knowledge of human nature, and the importance of human relationships. He believed that the drives, interests, and needs of the insane were the same as those of others, and that satisfaction of them through human relationships, would help restore their reason." Stribling recognized that insanity was a disease that if treated early, was curable. He used medical and moral therapy, separately or in concert, to cure his patients. Moral medicine included early treatment, separating the violent from those who could be cured, eliminating restraints whenever possible, providing patients with nutritious food, occupation, exercise, amusements and religious services. Caretakers were instructed how to increase their patients' self-esteem, especially by being their friend. Stribling's efforts to admit only patients who could be cured resulted in a bitter dispute in the early 1840s between him and Dr. John Minson. Galt was head of Eastern State Hospital, the first institution in the Colonies built for the treatment of the insane. Soon thereafter, Stribling rewrote Virginia's laws concerning the insane to conform to his admission policies. In 1852, Stribling and his directors defended themselves against charges by Captain Randolph that they abused their patients. Randolph's son had been a patient at Western State. During the Civil War Stribling managed to provide for his patients even after Sheridan's troops sacked his hospital. The daily lives of slave servants are described and also the different approaches taken by Stribling and Galt provide for insane free blacks and insane slaves. The similarities and differences between the two young doctors are examined. (Stribling was twenty-six and Galt twenty-two when they assumed their positions.) Letters between Dr. Stribling and Dorothea Dix from 1849 until 1860 describe a deep and intimate friendship. Mrs. Stribling's letter to her eighteen-year-old son while he was a prisoner of war is probably representative of many letters from other mothers in the South and North who were in a similar situation. After the war, Stribing was successful after he petitioned Congress to keep his job. His reconciliation speech at the superintendents' meeting in Boston in 1868 was highly praised by his fellow superintendents and the Boston press. Dr. Stribling died in 1874.

It never would have occurred to me to record the story of my life; I believed it to be of little public interest . However, Professor Jonathan Halevy, director general of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, where I have helped to establish a center for humanistic medicine, and other friends believed otherwise. They maintained that the men and women who will learn from and be served by the institutions I have been able to help with gifts in support of humanistic values would like some idea of who I am. In response to their urging I have attempted to present an accurate portrait of a fortunate man.

Cancer stories usually start with some kind of struggle or fight. This story starts with a song. "You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? You may say to yourself, my God, what have I done?" These words rang true for Christine Egan. Many questions and stories circulate about cancer. Are you telling yourself you are a victim of cancer? Are you worried the cancer will come back? Are you stuck in the role of being sick? Egan made a conscious choice to tell a different story. The Healthy Girl's Guide to Breast Cancer is part memoir and part guide revealing the all-too-true story of cancer in this country with a healthy twist. Rest assured-this is not a cancer story; it's a story about health and wellness.

Early in 2008, doing ordinary, mundane things like tying his shoes and walking up steps literally took author Jim Uhrig's breath away. He had trouble breathing, and it seemed as though he could never catch his breath. That was the beginning of a long journey for Uhrig, who shares his story in Partners 4 Life. In this memoir, he narrates the path his life took after being diagnosed with the incurable idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and undergoing a subsequent lung transplant in April of 2009. Uhrig not only discusses his diagnosis and treatment, but also places special emphasis on the partners-from his personal life, his business, and his sports activities-who provided him with inspiration and help and played an integral role in his survival. He includes his partners in medicine, the donor and her family, caregivers, and special angels. Uhrig's story relates how he tackled his lung disease and transplant with the same fervor he lived life. Partners 4 Life communicates the saving grace of an organ transplant as well as the power of positive thinking.