Suzanne Gordon

Suzanne Gordon grew up in New York City and Scarsdale, New York. Her father, Dan M. Gordon, M.D., was an ophthalmologist, who practiced at New York Hospital and was a professor at Cornell Medical School. He did the original research that adapted the use of ACTH and Cortisone for the treatment of inflammatory eye diseases.{{Cite journal|url=https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/625709|title=Therapeutic Habits in Ophthalmology|first=Dan M.|last=Gordon|date=January 1, 1959|journal=A.M.A. Archives of Ophthalmology|volume=61|issue=1|pages=72–78|via=jamanetwork.com|doi=10.1001/archopht.1959.00940090074010|pmid=13605339|url-access=subscription}}

She got her first job in journalism in 1970 at United Press International.{{cite web|url=https://jacobinmag.com/2014/04/deconstructing-paul-de-man/|title=Deconstructing Paul de Man|website=jacobinmag.com}} She also helped found and write for Women: A Journal of Liberation, one of the first feminist journals in the US.{{cite web|url=http://historyinthecity.blogspot.com/2011/11/so-i-came-home-from-california-to.html|title=open source history – women: a journal of liberation volume 1, no 1 fall 1969}}

For the first part of her career she wrote largely about political culture and women's issues, writing Lonely in America (1976), a journalistic account of loneliness as a mass social problem in American society.{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKcIZ2OTqlUC&q=lonely+in+america+1996+suzanne+gordon&pg=PA40 |title = Friends: What Would I do Without Them? : Finding Real and Valuable Friendships in an Unfriendly World|isbn = 9781881293026|last1 = Etuk|first1 = Emma S.|year = 1999}} She also wrote a widely reviewed expose of ballet as work – Off Balance: The Real World of Ballet.{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/suzanne-gordon-5/off-balance-the-real-world-of-ballet/|title=OFF BALANCE: The Real World of Ballet by Suzanne Gordon | Kirkus Reviews|via=www.kirkusreviews.com}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/12/books/new-noteworthy.html|title=New & Noteworthy|date=August 12, 1984|via=NYTimes.com}} The book challenged the myth that everything is beautiful at the ballet.{{cite web|url=https://wwnorton.com/college/english/write/writesite/Web_Essays/Kelso2015.pdf |title=Behind the Curtain: The Body, Control, and Ballet |last=Kelso |first=Paul |date=2015 |website=hwwnorton.com |access-date=2019-09-23}}{{cite news|url=http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/12/starving_for_their_art/|title=Starving for their art|first=Suzanne|last=Gordon|newspaper=Boston.com|via=The Boston Globe}}

Gordon began writing about healthcare after she had her first baby at a small community hospital outside of Boston. Socialized like so many others, only to focus on the role of physicians in healthcare, she was surprised to discover the importance of nurses in monitoring and managing her labor and delivery, making sure she and her baby were safe, and helping her to cope with her post-labor problems and learn how to take care of her baby.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}} She wrote her first article on nursing, "The Crisis in Caring" for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.[http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Rpts/rt5_m2m3_1989.pdf p. 42, footnote 5] She then spent three years at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, following three nurses for her book Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}

When President Clinton launched his failed health care initiative, which launched the era of managed care, Gordon began to journalistically document the impact of managed care on patients and caregivers alike. Her book Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost-Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nursing and Patient Care explored the problems of for-profit driven managed care.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}

In 2000, with the publication of the paperback version of Dana Beth Weinberg's Code Green, for which she wrote a foreword,{{cite web|url=https://www.truthaboutnursing.org/media/books/code_green.html|title=Code Green review|website=www.truthaboutnursing.org}} Gordon and her colleagues Fran Benson and Sioban Nelson, launched the Culture and Politics of Health Care Work Series at Cornell University Press which has published 30 titles on healthcare.

In the mid 2000 Gordon began to focus more on patient safety. Concerned about the parlous state of physician/nurse communication, she wrote the play Bedside Manners, with playwright Lisa Hayes in 2013.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}

• American Journal of Nursing. 2000 Book of the Year Award. From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public.{{cite web |url=http://www.unc.edu/news/briefs/2008/010708.html |title=UNC Events Briefs -- Jan. 7, 2008 |website=www.unc.edu |access-date=January 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081015190948/http://www.unc.edu/news/briefs/2008/010708.html |archive-date=October 15, 2008 |url-status=dead}}
• Nursing in the Media Award. Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. 2001.{{cite web|url=https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=620480&Journal_ID=54030&Issue_ID=620419|title=Book of the Year Awards: The most valuable texts of 2005, as chosen by AJN's panel of judges.|website=www.nursingcenter.com}}
• 2005 Golden Lamp Award for the Best Media Depiction of Nursing (Center for Nursing Advocacy) for Nursing against the Odds{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}
• Winner of the 2006 Golden Lamp Award for Best Media on How Nurses Present Themselves to the Public for The Complexities of Care
• Winner of the 2006 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards (Community/Public Health, Professional Development and Issues, History and Public Policy) for The Complexities of Care{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}
• Book of the Year Award. American Journal of Nursing for Safety in Numbers, 2008.{{Cite web|url=http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2009/03/american-journal-of-nursing-ajn-book-of-the-year-awards-08.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160420110712/http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2009/03/american-journal-of-nursing-ajn-book-of-the-year-awards-08.html|archive-date=2016-04-20|title=American Journal of Nursing (AJN) Book of the Year Awards '08 – Robert Wood Johnson Foundation}}
• First-place Winner of the 2009 AJN Book of the Year Awards (Leadership and Management, Public Interest and Creative Works) for Safety in Numbers

• Gordon, Suzanne. Black Mesa: The Angel of Death. New York: John Day, 1973. {{ISBN|978-0381900069}}
• Gordon, Suzanne. Lonely in America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976. {{ISBN|978-0525705642}}
• Gordon, Suzanne. Off Balance: The Real World of Ballet. New York: Pantheon, 1984, paperback, McGraw Hill, 1985. {{ISBN|978-0070237704}}
• Gordon, Suzanne. Prisoners of Men's Dreams: Striking Out for a New Feminine Future. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. {{ISBN|978-0316321068}}
• Gordon, Suzanne. Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-7428-6}}, paperback Back Bay Books, 1998. {{ISBN|9780316329637}}
• Buresh, Bernice and Gordon, Suzanne. From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public. Ottawa: Canadian Nurses Association, third edition 2013. {{ISBN|978-0801478734}}
• Gordon, Suzanne. Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-3976-6}}
• Buresh, Bernice and Gordon, Suzanne. From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public, 2nd Edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, May 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-7873-4}}
• Nelson, Sioban and Gordon, Suzanne editors. The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-4505-7}}
• Gordon, Suzanne, Buchanan, John, Bretherton, Tanya. Safety in Numbers: Nurse-to-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-4683-2}}
• Gordon, Suzanne, editor. When Chicken Soup Isn't Enough: Stories of Nurses Standing Up for Themselves, Their Patients, and Their Profession. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-4894-2}}
• Koppel, Ross and Gordon Suzanne, editors. First Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-5077-8}}
• Gordon, Suzanne, Mendenhall, Patrick, O’Connor, Bonnie Blair, with a foreword by Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberer. Beyond the Checklist: What Else Healthcare Can Learn from Aviation Safety and Teamwork. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-5160-7}}
• Gordon, Suzanne, Feldman, David L. Leonard, Michael. Editors, Collaborative Caring: Stories and Reflections on Teamwork in Health Care. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014

• Editorial board member Nursing Inquiry
• board member Journal of Interprofessional Care
• Robert Wood Johnson Committee on the Nursing Shortage{{cite web|url=https://www.worldcongress.com/speakerBio.cfm?speakerID=699&confcode=NW650|title=Suzanne Gordon – Biography|website=www.worldcongress.com}}

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Category:1945 births

Category:Living people

Category:American women journalists

Category:American women writers

Category:21st-century American women