YOUNG NURSE IN NEW YORK

As fiction, which this is intended to be, Diane Seidner's first book is only halfway successful; the characterization is cursory; the story barely exists; but in a genre or perhaps subject area which has been victimized by a uniform uniformity (stars in their eyes and halos instead of caps on their heads) Mrs. Seidner, who is a professional nurse, has made a certain contribution, notably realism. This is apparent in the opening chapter which finds Kira Thurson, a student nurse, ready to throw it all up because of some of the real problems a nurse in training faces--death (the death of a child); overwork; and the predominance of paper work over patient care. She is seen serving a relatively brief tour of duty on pediatric, obstetric, and psychiatric wards, and as a visiting health nurse; and the procedures she attends and makes possible are described with bona fide detail and terminology. All of it is genuinely interesting and reasonably well written.