Nurse Blake's Story: From Bedside Nurse to Entrepreneur, Comedian, Advocate and Influencer
In this episode of the Ask Nurse Alice podcast, Nurse Alice sits down with Blake Lynch A.K.A. “Nurse Blake”, a nurse and content creator who is known for his work as a comedian, health advocate, speaker, and author. They discuss Blake’s nursing journey, his unexpected transition into comedy, and his passion for advocacy.
Blake’s unique journey
Blake attributes his initial decision to pursue a career in healthcare to his parents. His dad is a respiratory therapist and his mom works in medical device sales.
He participated in a healthcare program while he was in high school, then jumped into nursing school immediately after graduation. Blake worked as a bedside nurse in hospitals all across the country before starting the thing that launched his comedy career: his Nurse Blake Facebook page.
Nowadays, Blake is a successful content creator, comedian, and entrepreneur, having launched a cruise ship-set nursing conference called NurseCon at Sea and a successful national comedy tour.
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Laughter is the best medicine
@nurseblake more specifically in the pharmacology semester 🫠 #nursingschool #nursingstudent ♬ original sound - Kardash Kingdom
Although Blake never imagined himself as a comedian, his witty videos about life as a bedside nurse resonate with nurses everywhere and he quickly became a viral sensation.
Sadly, it was feelings of burnout and self-doubt that led Blake to create his first online comedy video in the first place.
“I was like burnt out really one day, I was working in the ICU in Houston at the Texas Medical Center and I was driving home and I had like my very first panic attack, like I felt that sense of impending doom, like I couldn't breathe,” he explains in the episode. “And I'm like, shoot, like, I don't know if nursing is for me anymore, like, I don't know if I can handle it. And I was just tired. And I'm from Florida, but I was working in Texas at the time, so I was kind of lonely. And I'm like, I just need, like, an outlet, I need to connect with others.”
After his videos started to gain notoriety, Blake recognized it as an opportunity to build the supportive nursing community he had always dreamed of through humor and laughter.
“I started building this sense of community and these nurses really helped me realize that, you know, humor is okay, humor lets us get through things. And that I'm not the only nurse who is struggling with burnout, nurses all over the world, you know, face the same issues that I was. So it made me realize that, hey, I am a good nurse. You know, what I'm feeling is normal,” he tells Nurse Alice.
Nurse Alice explains that part of what makes Blake so successful is his relatability, saying, “I think that's what really makes your content resonate with us because we see ourselves in the content…Laughter is the best medicine.”
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Advocacy through community
Advocacy is a passion very close to Blake’s heart. From fighting for the reversal of the gay blood ban to teaching kids what to do in medical emergencies in his children’s books, Blake is always trying to integrate advocacy into everything he does.
“Even in my comedic videos, I still try to bring up serious issues that kind of face nurses on a daily basis, just kind of make it a little funny to keep it interesting and engaging,” he says in the episode. “So, you know, a lot of people may look at me and just say, oh, he just does all these random projects or he's just funny. Like no matter what I do, there's always an element of advocacy and a learning lesson.”
Blake tells Nurse Alice that advocacy is his ultimate motivator, even more so than comedy.
“That may surprise a lot of people, but that's what really drives me. And I'm just able to advocate in a humorous way, which kind of spreads the message to more people through humor. And I think that just puts a lot more eyes on things I'm trying to advocate for.”
NurseCon at Sea and National Comedy Tour
In this episode, Nurse Blake highlights two of his most recent successful ventures: NurseCon at Sea and his personal comedy tour.
Blake says he was inspired to create NurseCon at Sea after attending several nursing conferences when he was president of the Florida Nursing Student Organization.
“Let me tell you, they are all so boring for the most part. Like it's the same, the education's basic. They're all in these big, boring convention halls. They're very expensive. You gotta pay for your food and your hotels. And so ever since 10 years ago, I've known I wanted to shake up the nursing conferences, but I didn't know what that looked like. And then once I became a nurse and started Nurse Blake and working with nurse.org and hosting nurse nights at the baseball games, I learned like nurses wanna come out, like nurses wanna come together, not only online, but like in person. And so I said, oh my gosh, maybe I should just start a nursing conference,” he tells Nurse Alice.
When brainstorming locations for his nursing conference, Blake says he was inspired by his childhood growing up in Florida and how common it was to go on cruises. And thus, the idea for NurseCon at Sea was born.
Three conferences down and Blake says NurseCon at Sea is extremely popular among nurses.
“All of them pretty much sell out really, really fast. We have the whole ship. We fill it with thousands of nurses, around 3000 nurses.”
He also has a team of around 90 people that he manages for NurseCon at Sea, from CEU educators to entertainers, that help make the one-of-a-kind conference possible.
Blake’s second comedy tour, “Shock Advised”, is his biggest undertaking yet, with over 100 U.S. cities on the schedule. It is set to kick off on July 25 in Anchorage, Alaska.
“That doesn't include my Australia and Europe leg that I'm gonna be announcing soon,” he reveals in the episode.
Finally, Blake tells Nurse Alice that he is still amazed by his journey and the diverse opportunities of the nursing profession.
“I never ever thought that I would be running such a large nursing conference and also touring and making content and doing all these other things. So it is really special, but I think it just is a tribute to if you keep your mind and heart open, nursing is gonna take you on such a cool journey that you could never have expected.”
Want to learn more about Nurse Blake? Check out his website where you can purchase tickets for his comedy tour, learn more about NurseCon at Sea, purchase his children’s book, and subscribe to the free Nurse Blake Magazine! And be sure to follow his social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
