A great no-nonsense performance from Linda Lavin is the highlight of this TV movie where she plays an exhausted nurse who takes on the administration in helping her patients face death with dignity. She goes from a smaller hospital where she's been able to make friends with the patients and gets too close to them, finding difficulty in saying goodbye when they pass on, to a large city hospital where her methods are not popular with doctors or administration. Her actions get the attention of the media when they find out that she's advocated for a dying woman to return home to die against the wishes of her family.
No patient too young or too old is ignored, and it's touching to watch her with a young boy dying from bone disease as well as patients of all races and backgrounds. Doctors can't tell their patients the truth of their condition so it's up to Lavin to break the news to them. Among the costars are Tyne Daly as her best friend and Gayle Hunnicutt and Salome Jens as staff members and patients. This is absolutely no nonsense in the way Lavin deals with her standards of patient care, and she's completely different than TV's Alice Hyatt. Her private life seems to be in a total mess (in the opening scene to complaint about a hangover), but her professional life has her worthy of canonization. Very touching and honest, a hard topic to deal with, but rewarding once it's fully explored in spite of a few logical issues.
No patient too young or too old is ignored, and it's touching to watch her with a young boy dying from bone disease as well as patients of all races and backgrounds. Doctors can't tell their patients the truth of their condition so it's up to Lavin to break the news to them. Among the costars are Tyne Daly as her best friend and Gayle Hunnicutt and Salome Jens as staff members and patients. This is absolutely no nonsense in the way Lavin deals with her standards of patient care, and she's completely different than TV's Alice Hyatt. Her private life seems to be in a total mess (in the opening scene to complaint about a hangover), but her professional life has her worthy of canonization. Very touching and honest, a hard topic to deal with, but rewarding once it's fully explored in spite of a few logical issues.
