By Corrie Pikul
For The American Nurse Project, filmmaker Carolyn Jones set out to interview and photograph nurses around the country about their work, and ended up having broader conversations about life, death and things that matter to all of us.
Seventy-five portraits of caregivers are collected in a beautiful coffee-table book The American Nurse (the pages in our copy were quickly wet with tears -- not all of them the sad kind), and Jones continues to add life-affirming stories to the web site, americannurseproject.com. A documentary featuring six of the nurses is forthcoming in the fall of 2014.
There are over 3 million registered nurses in the U.S., and almost all of us will have an important relationship with a nurse at some point in our lives, whether it be while they're caring for us or a loved one. Through this project, they share the most challenging and inspiring parts of their jobs, as well as the insights they've gained about the human condition.
Click through the slideshow below for six inspiring nurses' stories.
