In this episode of Care Anywhere, host Lea Sims sits down with acclaimed documentary filmmakers Carolyn Jones and Lisa Frank to explore how film can change the way people understand nursing, healthcare, and the human stories behind both. Best known for projects such as The American Nurse, Defining Hope, In Case of Emergency, and American Delivery, Carolyn and Lisa reflect on their years of documenting nurses, patients, and families in some of the most intimate and consequential moments of care.

Carolyn shares how her own experience with a remarkable nurse during breast cancer treatment first sparked her interest in the profession. What began as a photography book on nurses evolved into a much larger storytelling journey as she and Lisa traveled across the United States capturing the breadth of nursing, from prisons and emergency departments to hospice, maternal health, and rural care. Along the way, they discovered that nursing offered a powerful lens into much larger issues, including poverty, aging, community, dignity, resilience, and the realities of healthcare in America.

Together, Carolyn and Lisa discuss why their work is not simply about documenting clinical settings, but about revealing the humanity inside healthcare. They talk about the trust required to film people in vulnerable moments, the ethical responsibility of representing those stories with care, and the unique role documentary film can play in creating empathy and sparking change. Their films, Lea notes, have the power to communicate in minutes what reports, conference sessions, and data often cannot: the emotional truth of what nurses see, do, and carry every day.

The conversation also looks at how storytelling can influence audiences far beyond the nursing profession. Carolyn and Lisa describe how their films have been used to open dialogue around end-of-life care, maternal mortality, violence prevention, workforce burnout, and scope of practice. By bringing nursing stories into public, educational, and policy spaces, their work helps elevate the profession and deepen understanding of the value nurses bring to patients, families, and communities.

Lea and her guests also share an early look at their newest documentary project, which TruMerit is proud to support, focused on international nurse migration and the career journeys of nurses coming to the United States from countries including Ghana, the Philippines, and India. The film explores not only professional opportunity, but also sacrifice, family separation, ethics, and the global realities of a healthcare system that depends on internationally educated nurses. Carolyn and Lisa explain how this project opened their eyes to the human side of migration and the importance of telling those stories with honesty and compassion.

Listeners will come away with a renewed appreciation for the power of storytelling to shape hearts, minds, and public understanding. This episode is a compelling reminder that documentary film can do more than inform. It can humanize, connect, and inspire action around the issues that matter most in healthcare and the global nursing workforce.