Nurse Stories

Renée Omoyeni, MS, RN, BSN, is a clinical support nurse and passionate leader and mentor for aspiring young nursing students through her non-profit CompassRN. Watch as she shares her love for the profession, and top tips to becoming a nurse.

Watch Rebecca Corona, RN, BSN, an Operating Room nurse, as she describes pivoting her career to nursing in the middle of a pandemic, why there is a path to nursing for everyone, and the many resources available to support your journey.

Dr. Daniel Obiefule, NP, MSN-Ed, RN, PMH-BC, is a College of Nursing Professor and an advocate for diversifying the nursing profession. Listen to his message on why representation matters in nursing and what it means to patients’ health outcomes.

In celebration of National Nurses Month, meet nurse innovators transforming healthcare across the U.S., underscoring the impact of the profession in advancing health equity, improving patient care, and strengthening health systems.

Building well-being and leadership skills in nursing isn’t a new concept, but surprisingly, it hasn’t traditionally been a formal component of nursing education. As a result, many nurses enter the profession unprepared for what’s ahead. Beginning this winter, a new educational curriculum from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing will pilot a competency-based approach to developing the next generation of nurses at 10 nursing colleges nationwide, focused on empowering students with the skills needed to prioritize self-care, healthy behaviors and well-being in the healthcare work environment.

Johnson & Johnson is proud to have supported nurse innovators and entrepreneurs through the Johnson & Johnson Nurses Innovate QuickFire Challenge Awards, which has provided grant funding for nurse-founded healthcare solutions and approaches. But the innovation journey doesn’t stop there. Here, three inspiring QuickFire Challenge awardees share what they’ve been up to since receiving their award, how their solutions have grown and expanded, and their advice for other nurses inspired to solve for healthcare’s biggest challenges.

As a hospital-based nurse, Kwamane Liddell saw how important it was for patients to have healthy meals tailored to their medical needs. Liddell created Nutrible, a technology platform that helps healthcare providers connect patients with healthy food aligned with their medical and cultural needs.

A former bedside nurse, USCF Health's Pat Patton’s data-backed, listen-first, feedback-driven approach to creating a supportive environment where nurses stay and thrive is working—and presents a blueprint for health systems everywhere.

Two years ago, when COVID-19 patients began arriving in her hospital, Lisa Kilgard, BSN, RN-BC, raised her hand to move full-time to that unit, where she thought she could learn something new and take care of vulnerable members of her community.

As a kid, Julius Johnson, DNP, RN, FNP-BC, watched his father, an ICU nurse, run toward every crisis. Julius loved the adrenaline rush, but he realized that what he really loved was helping people, so he became a nurse.

ICYMI: Get inspired! Check out what happened during the latest NurseHack4Health hackathon. From improving onboarding for new nurses to addressing burnout, the winning innovations from the weekend had one common denominator: creating a more sustainable workforce for nurses.

Shawna Butler, RN, MBA is a nurse economist, health tech catalyst, host of the SEE YOU NOW podcast, and above all—a relentless advocate for nurses everywhere. We spoke with Shawna about her career path, how she leverages her nursing expertise in a wide range of roles, and why she is so enthusiastic about the SEE YOU NOW podcast.

For nearly 30 years, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy and dentistry students and more have taken healthcare to their surrounding community, perhaps where it’s needed most. The Farmworker Family Health Program, launched by a nurse leader at Georgia State in 1993, and carried on by Emory University in 2001, provides various students an opportunity to offer basic care for the underserved migrant farmworkers of Colquitt, Cook, Brooks, and Tift counties in southwest, GA. Learn about its inception and how it grew to a nurse-led, community-focused effort.

The role of the nurse has evolved greatly over the past century, but nurses’ innovative and compassionate spirit has remained a constant. Meet Nurse Kevin Moore, BSN, RN, who serves in a unique role dedicated to patient advocacy, equity and improving the patient experience for the LGBTQIA+ community at NYU Langone Health in New York City.

Like the pioneering nurses who were on the frontlines of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, nurses on the frontlines of COVID-19 are overcoming challenges and driving new standards of care. Learn how the Rutgers University School of Nursing is inspiring nurse leaders of tomorrow with lessons from the nurses of Ward 5B.

Shaken by the experience of witnessing a child nearly die from heat exhaustion after accidentally being left in a hot car, emergency room nurse Maria Striemer, RN, BA, channeled her insight to invent the Backseet Buddy, an app that provides parents with peace of mind that it won’t happen to them.

At the dawn of the AIDS epidemic —when no one knew how the disease spread and diagnosis was considered terminal — the nurses in San Francisco General Hospital’s HIV/AIDS Ward 5B defied convention, found an innovative way to improve care and treated AIDS patients with compassion.

For nurses and other healthcare professionals, saving lives isn’t always limited to work hours. Having extensive healthcare skills and expertise means that nurses are nurses 24/7 and sometimes have a unique opportunity to respond to a call for help.

Perseverance can often be the ultimate key to changing your career. This certainly rang true for Sarah McDonald, RN, BSN, when she found out she was not selected for the highly competitive perioperative program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Mass., in the fall of 2015.

Scharmaine Lawson-Baker, DNP, FNP-BC, RN, FAANP, is a family nurse practitioner in New Orleans, La. who also created a children’s book series celebrating nursing.

Most nurses are used to working hours outside of the typical “9 to 5,” but night shift nurses are on a whole different level.

Tim Lenth, RN, and his son Adam Lenth, RN, are air medical flight nurses. They must work together to administer care in high acuity situations — all while flying 145 miles per hour, hundreds of feet above ground, in the tight confines of a helicopter.