Here in madcap but moving terms Sheila MacKay Russell answers once and for all the riddle of why a girl wants to be a nurse - loves the job and loathes it, but never gets the fever out of her system. A fever that sweeps Susan Bates into a great American hospital as a student nurse ... to backrending work and heartache; but between the daily tragedies, the triumphs and the acts of selflessness, there is also time to fall in love ...