Brigham PACU nurses attend their kickoff book club meeting to discuss Kathleen Hannah’s The Women.
Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) nurses recently had a “novel idea” for team building outside of work.
“I’m an avid reader, and after talking to a lot of the nurses down in the Recovery Room, I found many other nurses are too,” said Lisa Crivello, BSN, RN. “We started a book club as a way to connect through our love of reading and being Brigham nurses.”
The club, which already includes about 45 staff, kicked off with an in-person gathering in August at the home of PACU nurse Kerry Walsh, RN, to discuss Kristin Hannah’s latest novel, The Women.
“The book is about nurses and the many challenges they faced during and after the Vietnam War,” Crivello said. “Although none of us lived through Vietnam, we talked about our personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In addition to the connections participants forged during the book club meetup, the group has also given more PACU nurses an opportunity to build closer-knit relationships.
“The PACU is huge. We have about 180 PACU staff. Everybody kind of knows everybody, but you might see them more in passing. This was such a fun way to bring different groups together, like day nurses and night nurses,” Crivello said. “I love seeing the staff all get together and the positive conversations that this has stimulated. I’ve also had nurses come up to me and say, ‘I couldn’t get to the meeting, but I loved the book. What’s the next one?’”
Building on the group’s early momentum, Crivello created an Instagram page for the book club for members to stay engaged outside of their meetups. Members suggest recommendations for the next book, and the group chooses their selection with an online poll.
Their September discussion will center on The Villa by Rachel Hawkins.
The group’s first meetup was full of on-theme details from The Women, including camouflage-patterned tablecloths, a playlist of 1960s hits and food items mentioned in the book. They also sought to create their own version of the novel’s “Heroes Wall,” a wall in the protagonist’s parents’ house that features photos of the family’s male veterans.
“We decided to make our own ‘Heroes Wall,’ like the one in the book, and took Polaroid photos of staff as they arrived,” Crivello said. “We now have that hanging in our backroom.”