As part of a commission from the James A. Michener Art Museum, Ed Eckstein spent the summer of 1998 in Doylestown Hospital in Doylestown, Pennsylvania; 36 of the photographs were displayed at the museum for the hospital's 75th anniversary. The photographs are now on permanent display at the hospital. Eckstein acknowledges that he would probably not have this type of unlimited access to his subjects today, given the stricter rules that govern permission to take photographs-of either patients or health care professionals.
Eckstein, naturally drawn to solo images, was attracted to the "space-age" image of the orthopedic surgery nurse depicted on the cover because it represented a different, modern image of health care. Parts of the surgical scene-the lights, the patient-are reflected in the nurse's visor. Eckstein says that when he attended operations, he would look for the "key moments," the dramatic events, which tended to arise early in the process, before the surgical team settled into a comfortable rhythm.
This is Eckstein's third cover as part of AJN's photojournalism contest, Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work; he says he is reminded of something said by William Osler, physician and cofounder of Johns Hopkins University: "The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and priest, and not inferior to either in her mission."
Dana Carey, associate editor