Nurse Blake Wins Best Nursing Advocate & Comedic Nurse Creator of 2026

We’ll be highlighting all of Nurse.org’s 2026 “Best Of” Nursing Award winners for you to get to know over the coming days. You can find the complete list of our winners here!

By now, we may be a bit used to Nurse Blake (@nurse.blake) doing it all, but winning not one, but two Best of Nursing Awards for 2026 is a cause for celebration. Nurse.org is proud to announce that Nurse Blake is the winner of the Best Nursing Advocate Creator and Comedic Nurse Creator in 2026!

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From a nurse who says he’s never even received a Daisy Award, Nurse Blake says it “means a lot” to be recognized by his fellow nurses in this way.

“In the past, I had the honor of winning Best Nurse Event for NurseCon at Sea, but this year feels especially special because NurseCon at Sea won again, and I’m also honored to win Comedic Nurse Creator of the Year and Nursing Advocate of the Year,” Nurse Blake explains. “What makes it so meaningful is that these awards come directly from nurses. Knowing that something I’ve created made a nurse laugh, feel seen, or feel supported is the best recognition I could ask for.”

Image source: Nurse Blake

This year’s category of Best Nursing Advocate Creator is a new one, so Nurse Blake is the first-ever award recipient. He may be known for making us laugh with his signature hilarious videos, but at the core of everything he does is advocating for improving the nursing industry.

“Advocacy has always been important to me, even before social media,” Nurse Blake says. “During nursing school, I learned how powerful nurses can be when they come together around a cause. As my platform grew, I realized I had an opportunity to do more than make nurses laugh. I could help amplify their voices and bring attention to issues affecting our profession.

He adds that he believes nurses are some of the strongest advocates out there, and that through nurses speaking up together, real change can be created.

That’s exactly why, alongside his funny content, you’ll find pictures and videos of Nurse Blake on strike lines (he was even recently in my hometown of Michigan, standing with Henry Ford nurses, whose strike is still going on, 9 months later!), supporting nurses who are fighting for better working conditions, advocating for safe staffing, promoting workplace safety, or encouraging healthier work environments.

Despite his busy touring schedule, running and managing events like NurseCon at Sea and Camp NurseCon, Nurse Blake does the very real (and sometimes hardest!) part of advocacy: showing up.

“Showing up matters,” he says. ” Nurses on strike are fighting for safe staffing, patient safety, fair treatment, and sustainable working conditions—they’re using their voice not just for themselves, but for the future of healthcare and for their patients.”

“If I can use my platform to bring more visibility to what nurses are fighting for, then I’m going to do it,” he adds. “I want nurses to know they’re supported and that people are paying attention. Whenever there’s a nursing strike, and I’m able to travel, I make it a priority to show up and stand alongside nurses.”

One of the successful advocacy campaigns Nurse Blake worked on with Banned4Life, an advocacy movement he started in 2013 after being told he would be “banned for life” from donating blood, simply because he is a gay man.

At the time, Nurse Blake was still in nursing school and was inspired to donate blood after seeing a close friend sick with sickle cell anemia, who was constantly in and out of the hospital receiving blood transfusions. Unfortunately, Nurse Blake got no further than the donor questionnaire, because after marking that he was gay, he was immediately told he could not donate blood then, or ever.

“That moment was shocking and deeply personal for me,” Nurse Blake remembers. “I couldn’t understand why someone willing and able to help save lives would be turned away because of an outdated policy rooted in stigma rather than science.”

That experience led him to create Banned4Life, which eventually grew into a national advocacy campaign focused on raising awareness about the FDA’s lifetime ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. After two years of advocacy, education, and pushing for change, the FDA lifted the permanent ban. “Banned4Life was my first real experience seeing how advocacy and using your voice can create meaningful change,” Nurse Blake says. “Since then, I’ve continued using my voice and platform to advocate for change.”

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After successfully campaigning against being banned for life to give blood, Nurse Blake set his sights on changing a key piece of stereotypical nursing culture: the idea that nurses “eat” their young.

In 2018, he started the campaign, Nurses Support Their Young, a movement focused on ending workplace bullying and changing the culture within nursing from “nurses eat their young” to “nurses support their young.”

The campaign was created to bring awareness to the bullying that many nurses, especially new nurses and nursing students, experience in healthcare settings. “The goal of the movement is to create a culture rooted in kindness, mentorship, compassion, and support for the next generation of nurses,” says Nurse Blake. “Workplace bullying in nursing has been linked to burnout, stress, poor job satisfaction, and even negative impacts on patient care, which is why this advocacy work is so important.”

Nurse.org readers can get involved in the campaign in several ways, such as:

• Advocating for a healthier workplace culture in their own hospitals
• Encouraging coworkers to support and mentor new nurses
• Speaking up when they witness bullying or toxic behavior in healthcare environments
• Singing the pledge to support younger nurses

To end our feature on one of our favorite all-time nurses, we did a quick round of five questions to learn what’s new in Nurse Blake’s world and find some answers to a few of our pressing questions for him.

What do you have planned for the rest of the year that your fans can look forward to?

We have a lot of exciting things coming up! Camp NurseCon is happening this fall, which is a wellness-focused retreat for nurses inspired by the importance of rest, connection, and healing.

I also have an extension of my But Did You Die? tour starting in October; you can find tickets at nurseblake.com. I’m always trying to find new ways to bring nurses together and create spaces where they can laugh, recharge, and feel supported, so stay tuned for more!

If you had to name one cause you want young or new nurses to know about, what would it be?

I’d want them to know that protecting your mental health is not selfish; it’s necessary. Burnout in healthcare is very real, and I think new nurses need to hear early on that taking care of themselves matters just as much as taking care of their patients. You can’t pour from an empty cup forever. It took me a long time to truly understand that. As nurses, we’re so used to putting everyone else first that we often forget to care for ourselves.

But nursing can take a significant emotional and mental toll, and if we ignore that for too long, it catches up with us. Mental health is something that’s incredibly important to me, and it’s a message I’m passionate about sharing with young and new nurses. I want them to know that it’s okay to set boundaries, step away when needed, and make time for themselves. Taking care of your own well-being doesn’t make you weak.

What do you love most about what you do as a content creator?

I love the community that we have built together! I love getting to interact with everyone online via comments, DMs, or stories, and even more, I love seeing everyone in person at my shows or at NurseCon! The community has definitely been the best part of being a content creator.

Where do you find inspiration for your videos?

Most of what I share online comes from my own experiences at the bedside and throughout my nursing career. Honestly, one shift as a nurse can give you enough content for a lifetime. The notes app on my phone is filled with hundreds of ideas and stories. I also get inspiration from talking with nurses online and in person. Nurses have some of the funniest, wildest, and most meaningful stories, and those conversations often spark ideas for my next video.

Nurses Week recently wrapped up: What was your favorite “gift” from the many submissions you got?

Image Source: Nurse Blake

That’s a hard one! Most of the Nurses Week submissions I get are things like rocks, a single Lifesaver mint, or other gifts that somehow manage to be both memorable and disappointing at the same time.

@nurseblake Happy Nurses Week! TAKE ONE! (Just ☝️) #nursesweek ♬ original sound – Nurse Blake, BSN, RN 🩷

One of the more impressive submissions came from a nurse whose hospital brought in a massage school to give staff back massages during Nurses Week. Compared to some of the things I’ve seen over the years, that one actually felt thoughtful and like someone was genuinely trying to support their nurses. Then I remembered… nurses barely have time to pee during a shift, let alone sit down for a massage. So maybe a massage gift card would’ve been the real winner!