• “The smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics.”—Salon.com
  • A time-hopping, continent-spanning salmagundi of genres.”
    —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
  • “These books have to be word-of-mouth books because they're too weird to describe to anybody.”
    —Jackie Cantor, Diana's first editor

MUST-READ for NURSES! Quite an honor!

I was Charmed to be informed that the Licensed Practical Nurse to Registered Nurse site has chosen OUTLANDER as one of its (Fiction) Must-Read books for Nurses! Thanks so much to you, and all the nursing profession!

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39 Responses »

  1. Diana,

    I am not a nurse, but I have always appreciated the detailed descriptions of Claire’s profession and the things she did while deployed to the past!! Most interesting is their reactions to all her knowledge. So entertaining. And SO MUCH information packed into these books, too. Congratulations! All that research you have done has paid off in an amazing way!!

    Bonnie

  2. Diana,
    I have been an emergency nurse for 25years and have worked in rural remote Australia, I know what its like to be surrounded by people who are looking for you to do some sort of medical magic when you are in the middle of nowhere and think you are in a different century. Your description of Claire trying to bring health care to people in another time is inspiring and I like to think that Nurses have that practical ability to try and make something out of very little to bring some comfort and healing. I have been reading your books for years ( over and over) and I am thrilled that they have been nominated as books for nurses in all our professional forms. Thank you again for your wonderful talent. Can’t wait for book 8. But more importantly I wish you all the happiness and health to you and your family. God Bless !!!!

    Lisa

  3. I’ve worked as an acute care nurse for many years and have always been fascinated by medicine in earlier ages a lot of which is making a comeback in todays climate of overuse of antibiotics and superbugs.

    Clare’s experiences make for fascinating reading.

  4. you have gathered so many of my interests in these stories! i am a RN that has worked med-surg, psych, detox, and hospice. i am semi retired now and do light energy work, crystals, herbs, reflexology, and use copper energy tools for healing. i have also this year been clearing my karma and relived lives in which i was burned at the stake, tortured, drowned and on and on. your fiction is so right on! it brings to life all the various historical items, attitudes, resources (i also do historial buckskinner reinactint). such a treat. so real i have a hard time getting out of that mode when i reread the series. anxiously awaiting the next one. i also pracise native religious ceremony.

  5. This is a long overdue honour in my humble opinion! I am an RN working in paediatric oncology and can’t tell you how many other nurses, doctors, physios, pharmacists, ward clerks, cleaners and multiple others I have recommended your books to. Just recently I recommended the series to a parent of a child in my care as a form of distraction. It can be pretty boring to sit at the bedside of a (relatively speaking) well child, with Spongebob on infinite repeat, and watch the chemo drip, drip, drip, through the IV line. The books have (not surprisingly) spread around the ward like wild fire! No advertiser of publisher will ever be able to compete with the awesome power of a network of bored parents! I still can’t (after years of reading) quite put my finger on what makes these books so damn addictive, and have decided to stop trying. Maybe if I discovered the secret the magic would be gone! So thank you for the books and congratulations on the award!

    Christina

    P.S. Please don’t make us wait too long for the next one. Withdrawal is a terrible thing you know!

  6. We’ve all been waiting so long for this series come to movie form! What about HBO picking up the series?
    After all, THIS series is so much better than the Game of Thrones which is dark, dirty, muddy and violent!
    AND not much romance! What romance there is is twisted & icky. I love all the historical knowledge that Ms. G. puts in all her books. I learn so much history, geography and medical knowledge….and folk medicine. Oh, (sigh) when are we going to see all these wonderful people on the screen? Gerard Butler, years ago, was my very first pick. Terrific actor, good looking, but not too! Blue eyes and SCOTTISH. AND 6′ 4″ tall….We can always dye his hair! But now it’s taking so long all the actors I’ve loved to fill these character roles are getting too old! Please hurry! Let’s start looking at Chris Hemsworth: 6’4″ too, blue eyes (face not too pug!?) and he can learn a Scottish brrrrr…..Hopefully HE won’t get too old before this comes out…..

  7. SO I am totally changing th subject here. As I patiently wait for the next book – I am filling my time with others – soemone may have mentioned this when the hardback came out but I am a paperback girl (except for your novels). So back to the main subject – and I was reading John Sanford’s Bad Blood when on page 260 a character picks up her Diana Gabaldon novel and tries to read for 20 minutes – What a hoot for me to run across a mention of you in a crime novel!

  8. It’s killing me waiting for the next book. The romance is wonderful but I’m a huge history buff and love thinking about the US in it’s earliest days and what it must have been like to live in that era, esp. for Claire, Brianna, and Roger who traveled backward.

  9. My most treasured series! First off, I am in love with Jamie but I suppose that goes without saying. My second favorite thing about this series is all of the med-surg “scenes”. It is sooo interesting to me to read how different procedures, medicines, etc. were back in the 1700′s-1800′s before modern technology. The herbal uses and properties are particularly intriguing to me. Thanks Diana! I am so looking forward to Written in My Own Heart’s Blood!

  10. I’m a RN, and I discovered Outlander while working night shift with my best friend and book sharing buddy, also a RN. She shared Outlander with me. I’ll always associate my first reading of Outlander with the few times of quiet hospital halls, lights down low for patient comfort, and discovering a kindred spirit in Claire. Thank you so much for your work.

  11. Your books were one of the reasons I decided to become a nurse :)

  12. I am an OR nurse, herbalist, and a wanna-go-back-in-time-for-my-afterlife kinda gal. Read Outlander in 1993 and haven’t put it down since! (Actually, I wrote a similar version of the book in my head long before it came out but Diana got it on paper first! Damn! ) This is a great series for nurses-honey, maggots and herbs are really healing stuff and we actually use these things in the real world today. Will be really pissed if I peg off before Diana gets to the end…but the wait is damn well worth it! Love these books!

  13. This series has actually had a major role in saving my life. I discovered the series after my first sinus surgery at John Hopkins in 2006. Several operations and years later in 2010 when no one in medicine could find an accurate diagnosis , I was re -reading again this time about Claire’s surgery and attempts to grow her own Penicillin and I made the decision to put petri dishes out in the office where I worked and in my home. To my complete and utter suprise the dishes at my home were overflowing with positive fungal cultures and penicillium after only 3 days. Turns out I had been living in a toxic mold time bomb.All of my physicans and my physician husband were humbled that through your books I had been able to discover the cause of my illness that had eluded physicians from John Hopkins to South Carolina. What wonderful common sense insight your books provide if people just stop and take the time to read. Thank you Julie M

    • Dear Julie–

      Wow, what a story! I’m so glad you discovered the cause!

      –Diana

      • Diana, one more surgery to go. I am sure so many others have told you how your books enriched their lives, I have no idea why I was drawn to the bookstore on that cold Jan. day after my first surgery but your books have been my guiding light through the last 7. I had to leave all my treasured hardbacks at my house . I was not allowed to take even my Grandmothers 100 yr old bible with me. I am scotch-irish from Eastern Ky. so no giving up allowed. I am eager for my next encounter with Jamie and Claire and wish you all the best during the creative phase. Thank you for responding to my note, I have never ‘blogged’ before , you are very kind and oh so gifted. Julie

  14. Diana, as a nurse I couldn’t agree more with the decision to have Outlander as a must read for nurses. Claire being a field nurse in the book and such a good one in Scotland set back in the 18th century put nursing for me into a different perspective. We are so clinical and interventional now, and she did well with what she had. Love it!!

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