CANTON -- Theresa Brown, RN, author of the book "The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives," will speak at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, at SUNY Canton's Roos House Convocation, Athletic and Recreation Center.

The event is part of the spring installment of the college's Living Writers Series and is cosponsored by Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center and Hospice and Palliative Care of St. Lawrence Valley. It is free and open to the public.

The publisher describes "The Shift" as an eye-opening and riveting account of Brown's day as a nurse in a busy teaching hospital's oncology ward. The reader is offered an unprecedented look into the individual struggles of patients and medical professionals, which reveals larger truths about medicine in the United States.

"The Shift" is a New York Times bestseller, and Brown has been a guest on NPR's "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and ABC's "20/20." Her column "Bedside" was published in the New York Times op-ed page, as well as on the Times' blog "Opinionator." In 2009 she attended a White House press conference where President Obama quoted her New York Times article about health care reform.

"We are thrilled to partner with Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center and Hospice and Palliative Care of St. Lawrence Valley to bring such a timely and compelling literary voice from the field of medicine," said SUNY Canton Assistant Professor of English and series creator Phil K. LaMarche. "Theresa Brown's stories from the cancer floor of her hospital are fraught with personal drama and the difficult medical issues of our time."

Dr. Danielle Ofri, author of "What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine," described Brown's book as a "compelling and compassionate human drama. If you want to understand how modern medicine ticks, fasten your seat belt and spend a day in the hospital with Theresa Brown on 'The Shift.'"

Brown received a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in English from the University of Chicago and a master's degree from Columbia University. She has also taught writing and literature at Harvard, MIT and Tufts. Her first book, "Critical Care: A new Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between," is used by many schools as a nursing textbook. She currently works as a clinical nurse in Pittsburgh.

For more information about Brown and the Living Writers Series, visit www.canton.edu/writers.