In alignment with the American Nurses Foundation's Nurse Well-Being Initiative.

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Creative Nurses Are Leading The Next Wave Of Well-being Innovation

Articles coming soon!

Featured Nurse Photographer coming soon!

Creative Nurses Are Leading The Next Wave Of Well-being Innovation

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Creative nurses are leading the next wave of well-being innovation.
And The Nursing Lens is where their stories live.We’re a nurse-led media platform built to tackle two critical challenges:• The emotional burnout plaguing nurses across every care setting• The widening gap in public health literacy and trustNurses aren’t just providers- they’re eyewitnesses, educators, and natural storytellers. When they create through writing, photography, video, or sound, they process their own experiences and move the health conversation forward.This isn’t just content.
It’s nurse-powered media with purpose.Healing the Healers. Informing the Public. Shifting the Culture.

Healing the Healers.
Informing the Public.
Advancing the Culture.

Calling All Nurse Creatives!

Did you know?At The Nursing Lens, every nurse writer, videographer, poet, photographer, video editor, camera operator, anchor, and well (you get what we mean), is a volunteer.We’re building something powerful and we’re inviting Nurse Creatives to help lead it.The Nursing Lens is assembling a volunteer collective of writers, videographers, photographers, medical reviewers, and any nurse who wants to be involved in carrying out our mission. We’re not fully launched yet, but we’re very close!If you are a nurse and an aspiring digital storyteller, or a nurse creative who wants to be part of a mission-driven media platform that puts nurses first, fill out the form below. We’ll be in touch as soon as roles open.Whether you can help with a single story or an ongoing effort, or perhaps you've made health-related content and would like to share it through this platform, we’d love to know who you are!

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A curated guide to evidence-based tools for nurse well-being and emotional resilience. At The Nursing Lens, we believe storytelling and emotional support are inseparable in the healing professions.In alignment with the American Nurses Foundation’s Nurse Well-Being Initiative, this page provides access to powerful tools that help nurses assess, manage, and communicate their own stress and recognize signs of stress injury in others. These tools are designed not just for self-awareness, but to foster peer support, psychological safety, and leadership accountability.This isn’t just a resource hub. It’s an integral part of our contributor onboarding process. Whether you’re submitting an article, sharing photography, or reviewing clinical content, you’ll be asked to complete the Nurse Well-Being Training listed below.Don’t worry — it takes about 30 minutes. But it’s 30 minutes that matter. Time spent learning this framework could help a nurse stay in the profession. It could normalize open conversations about stress at work. We truly believe it could keep a nurse from hurting themselves or others.Below are essential tools and resources curated and in alignment with the American Nurses Foundation's Nurse Well-Being Initiative — each designed to support emotional health, peer connection, and sustainable nursing practice.

American Nurses Foundation's Nurse Well-Being Resources

These are curated emotional health tools created by and for nurses. The ANF resource library includes:Mental health hotlinesPodcastsGratitude ToolkitsSuicide Prevention and Resilience guidesPeer support toolkitsLinks to professional treatment centersTake me to the ANF's Nurse Well-Being Resources

Nurse Well-Being Training (Required for Volunteers/Contributors)

As part of our contributor process, we ask all writers, reviewers, and media producers to complete the ANF’s free Nurse Well-Being Training. This training introduces the Stress First Aid model, a peer-support system adapted from military and first responder fields — now tailored for nursing environments.Training Includes:
Course PreviewFull CourseSupplemental Leadership ModuleFacilitator TrainingDownloadable Implementation GuideNote: Users must complete ANF’s course evaluation to receive their Certificate of Completion.Take me to the Nurse Well-Being Training

Stress Self-Assessment Tool

This anonymous, free tool lets you assess your current level of stress using the Stress Continuum Model. After answering a brief series of questions, you’ll receive personalized suggestions based on where you fall on the continuum- from thriving to severely impacted.
It’s quick, honest, and immediately actionable. You don’t need to sign up or create an account.Take the free Stress Self-Assessment

Watch:
Tools for Building Peer and Leadership Support

TOOLS FOR BUILDING PEER AND LEADERSHIP SUPPORTThis 30 minute video explains how nurses can register for the Nurse Well-Being Program and access the FREE training modules.It also explains the importance of selecting appropriate champions to help implement the stress first aid program on your units.The program encourages nurses to be comfortable talking about their own stress and burnout, and utilize the tools provided, such as the color -coded Stress Continuum tool.90% of the nurses using the tool found the tool easy to use and there was a 28% decrease in burnout among nurses enrolled in the pilot program after six months.

NCSBN CEO Talks About the 2024 Nursing Workforce StudyIn this video, Phil Dickison, CEO of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), discusses the troubling state of the nursing workforce in 2024. He highlights that over 138,000 nurses have left the profession due to stress and burnout—and warns that 40% of nurses intend to leave within the next five years.Dickison stresses that recovery requires more than surface-level fixes. He calls for multi-faceted, sustainable solutions, including mental health support, de-escalation training, and a deeper look at the systemic causes of nurse attrition beyond the pandemic.Most importantly, he urges healthcare leaders to listen to nurses and involve them directly in the creation of solutions, instead of relying on top-down mandates.Dickison’s message is more than a warning—it’s a call to action."And my argument is we need to be better as leaders, listening before we act, listening to these voices of the nurses before we invoke solutions. Bring them to the to the tables so that we can hear them...-Phil Dickison
CEO, National Council of State Boards of NursingWatch the full interview here.

Thank You for Your Support!The Nursing Lens is preparing to accept donations. We are currently in the process of securing a fiscal sponsor and applying for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.Once our fiscal sponsorship is confirmed, we will be able to accept tax-deductible donations, grants, and other forms of financial support.In the meantime, your encouragement, your attention, and your belief in our mission mean everything to us.Want to stay in the loop or help another way? Visit our Get Involved page.

After 15 years as a registered nurse (including 13 at the VA) I saw how emotional burnout quietly erodes the very people holding the system together. Nurses give everything to their patients, often at the cost of their own well-being.But I also discovered something else:
Creativity can be a way through it.I launched The Nursing Lens to create a space where nurses could process their experiences through storytelling and to amplify voices too often left out of the healthcare conversation.There’s healing in telling your story.
There’s healing in producing it.
And there’s healing in being seen, heard, and understood by others.Writing. Filming. Editing. These aren’t just technical skills- they’re forms of emotional release. At The Nursing Lens, the creative production of a single story can restore many nurses involved in the process.The benefits don’t stop there. These stories help educate the public, not just about emotional health of our nursing community, but about a wide range of health topics from our nurse contributors. And some stories have nothing to do with medicine- just raw, artistic expression from within the nursing community. That’s healing too.Every nurse who volunteers with us is introduced to a powerful, peer-based stress management tool: Stress First Aid. This color-coded system normalizes conversations like “I’m not okay” and makes it easier for nurses to recognize, respond to, and support each other’s mental and emotional states in real time.I believe that if this system had been in place in my unit, it might’ve changed my nursing journey's trajectory.
But then again, without that experience, The Nursing Lens might never have been born.Eventually, the question shifted.
It wasn’t: “Can I afford to build this?”
It became: “Can I afford not to?”Learning about Stress First Aid gave me language for wounds I didn't know how to name. And it gives us a roadmap for peer support that I wish every nurse had access to.So I built the platform I wish existed when I needed it most.I’m a dad, a husband, a nurse, a health writer, a documentary-style storyteller, and the founder of this movement.This project is powered by purpose.
Built by nurses.
For nurses.Join us as we heal the healers, inform the public, and shift the culture of nursing... one story at a time.

Eric Aguila BSN, RN GERO-BC