When you wind up in a hospital, you’re suddenly surrounded by – and often, dependent on – health care workers like nurses. Garth Greenwell explores the relationships between a patient and his medical team in his novel “Small Rain.” Mayo Clinic nursing administrator Melania Flores joins us to discuss the importance of nurses and the unique connection, humanity and support they can provide to patients. 

This episode was made possible by the generous support of Ken Stevens.

We talked with:

• Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for many other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His second book, Cleanness, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and the Prix Sade, among others. His cultural criticism has appeared widely, and he writes regularly about books, music, and film for the Substack newsletter To a Green Thought. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the 2021 Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.
• Melania Flores has been in healthcare since 1991. Her clinical time was predominantly spent in Intensive Care and Progressive Care Cardiac Units. Since 2001 she has held progressive leadership positions at Mayo Clinic in Arizona serving in Administration overseeing ambulatory, procedural and inpatient practices. She is passionate about mentoring and in her free time loves to trail run.

Purchase “Small Rain.”

• From Bookshop.org.
• From Amazon.
• From Barnes & Noble.

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