Photographer Stephen Holt captured this month's cover image, which shows Marzena Blundell, RN, preparing an expectant mother for cesarean section at the University of Utah Hospital and Clinic, winning him an honorable mention in AJN 's photojournalism contest, The Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work.
The photos are part of a series Holt did with The Documentary Group, a group of seven photographers asked by a nursing-retention organization to capture the work of nurses during a 24-hour period in February 2005. More than 5,300 photographs were taken-many were published in a 12-page special section in the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News-and Holt spent his 24 hours on the hospital's labor and delivery unit.
The mother gave birth during Mr. Holt's 24-hour shift, and the photo above shows Ms. Blundell instructing the newborn's father how to safely bathe his daughter.
A freelance photographer and the husband of a nurse, Holt found the experience draining and exhilarating. He witnessed two natural births, two cesarean sections, and an emergency delivery in which nurses saved a newborn in a matter of seconds. He decided to take the cover photograph from the perspective of a mother-to-be who was trying to see what was going on under her gown as the nurse prepped her for the operation.
"Nurse Blundell put her patient at ease and reassured her to help make the experience as happy and memorable as possible," Holt says. "Blundell treated her not as a patient, but as a friend."