When you think of nursing, you may only think about the technical and mechanical aspects of being a nurse today. However, while the medical knowledge is very important, not many understand the emotional knowledge that nurses acquire while on the job. Throughout their career, nurses experience several ups and downs that challenge their careers and personal lives.

We have gathered the most inspirational memoirs written by nurses for nurses. Many of these memoirs offer multiple angles of the nursing profession for those inside and outside of the healthcare world.

If you want to read a story that is full of hope, love, and determination, try one of these inspirational memoirs.

1. Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse by Echo Heron

In “Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse”, Echo Heron gives her own personal account of working 10 years in the intensive care unit and emergency room of a major hospital. Heron retells her emotional struggles to the reader, and gives a realistic portrayal of a working nurse. From describing her years as a nursing student to writing about her struggle of balancing motherhood and her nursing job, Heron truly captures the sacrifices nurses make to take care of their patients.

2. Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life by Mary Jane Nealon

Described as “an unflinching memoir by a working nurse”, Mary Jane Nealon details her life of caregiving, from being a flying nurse to treating men in homeless shelters and working in AIDS wards in New York City. In her compelling memoir, Nealon brings some insight on some hard truths of both disease and recovery, and both life and death. “Beautiful Unbroken” follows Nealon from her time as a child to her dream of becoming a nurse.

3. Opening My Heart: A Journey from Nurse to Patient and Back Again by Tilda Shalof

After years of taking care of critically ill patients, Tilda Shalof gets a diagnosis of her own that gives her new insights on the patient’s perspective. In “Opening My Heart”, Shalof recounts her experiences in her career while also telling the experiences of other nurses’ in her ward during her week-long stay. She provides clinical details on her own diagnosis and shares her personal journey of healing. You will find Shalof’s voice warm and inviting as she gives us insight on the patient’s perspective.

4. Becoming Nursey by Kati Kleber

“Becoming Nursey” is told through the eyes of Kati Kleber, BSN, RN, who has had her fair share of the ups and downs in nursing. Kleber goes in her own personal experience and shares her stories of working as a bedside nurse. She also shares some practical advice for nursing students and those who just entered the field. Her stories of nursing gives readers insight on what it’s really like to be a nurse and the honest realities nurses face on a daily basis.

5. Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between by Theresa Brown

As a regular contributor to the New York Times blog “Well”, Theresa Brown has penned a powerful memoir called “Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between”. Her memoir delves into her transition from being an English professor to a registered nurses, sharing her first year in the oncology unit. Brown deals with the emotional aspects, challenges, and rewards of working in critical care, while also sharing how it impacted her life and the person that she is today.

6. (I Wasn’t Strong Like This When I Started Out) True Stories of Becoming A Nurse edited by Lee Gutkind

Unlike the other books on this list, “True Stories of Becoming A Nurse” goes into the lives of several nurses as they recount their first experiences in the nursing field. This book has a diverse collection of stories from individuals in multiple areas of nursing, spanning across several nursing specialties. You will learn about the different hard choices that healthcare professionals make throughout their career, as well as the impact those hard choices had.

Do you have another memoir you would like to recommend for nurses? Share it below!