The Unforgettable Story of the First Male ANA President: Dr. Ernest Grant

The man lying in the hospital did not want Ernest Grant in the room.

He had burns and beefy red blisters on the right side of his body. He was in a lot of pain. Visible were tattoos of the Confederate flag and “KKK” all over his body that clearly expressed how he felt about the people tasked with keeping him alive. When Grant walked in, the patient asked if there was someone else who could provide his care.

Grant stayed put. He pulled a chair close to the bed so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice. Then he explained the situation the way a nurse calmly explains medication or pain. The burn team was here. They were qualified. Many of them were Black. The nearest alternative hospital was staffed much the same way. The patient could either stay and receive care or go elsewhere against medical advice.

The man stayed.

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Grant began the treatment, touching skin the patient did not want him to touch, doing the work that would allow him to live long enough to reconsider the opinions he had permanently written on his own body.

Years later, people would call Ernest Grant a leader in American nursing. But in the burn unit that day, he was something simpler: the person responsible for taking care of this and the other patients assigned to him.

On a Sunday afternoon, I wait for Grant to return home from church so we can begin our Zoom interview. I am slightly nervous about our conversation and hope to learn something about him that others haven’t. In the nursing world, he is an iconic figure, often described as an “American Nurse,” a designation that highlights how nurses shape the country’s health in extraordinary ways.

On the screen, he appears warm and friendly but also reserved, almost cautious with his words.

Grant is tall, 6’6”, thin, a dark-skinned African American man born in 1958 and raised in rural North Carolina, in the town of Swannanoa. He is the youngest of seven children, raised by his mother in what he calls “the village.” His mother told the neighbors to discipline any of her children who misbehaved. His father died when he was five.

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Religion and faith were central. His mother, Annie Bell Grant, led in the local Christian church and worked at the post office, which meant she knew most families in the community. Grant describes her as “a leader for the community and a caregiver of others.”

Swannanoa, he recalls, had two separate areas: “one for White families and one for Black families.” From early on, race and gender influenced his decision to pursue nursing. He depended on lessons from his mother, his faith, and a belief in “God having a path for him.”

A childhood friend, Jill Hamilton, now a nurse and professor at the Emory University School of Nursing, remembers those years. “We were all very poor, but it was his mother and faith that provided direction,” she said. “We never focused on what we didn’t have. We believed working hard resulted in progress.”

Grant has lived by those principles: hard work, forward progress, and not focusing on what he lacked.

In 2019, he became the first and only male President of the American Nurses Association, the largest professional nursing organization in the country representing more than five million registered nurses. The organization was founded in 1896. His presidency began just as the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States.

Earlier, in 2002, President George W. Bush named him Nurse of the Year for the care he provided treating burn survivors and frontline responders after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Patients and Life Purpose

But when Grant tells his life stories, he does not begin with titles or accolades.

He returns to patients and purpose.

I ask how the burn unit encounter affected him.

His reply is immediate and definitive: “I did what was in the best interest of this particular patient and my fellow Black healthcare team colleagues.”

Talking with him feels less like interviewing a public figure and more like talking to a colleague who listens carefully before responding. He rarely focuses on his own feelings. His sentences often end with the patient or with some reflection of a broader commitment to supporting the health of all people, irrespective of who they are or what views they might hold.

Grant entered a nursing profession traditionally associated with female and White individuals.

Michael Cary, a Black male nurse and the first tenured African American male professor at the Duke University School of Nursing, cofounded an affinity group for Black male nurses with Grant and other male colleagues.

“As a Black male nurse, you are often unseen and misunderstood,” Cary said. “We learn how to push through and keep our eye on our goals. For us that oftentimes means not expressing how we might really feel.”

Grant does not disagree, but he does not elaborate either. Instead, he talks about responsibility, teamwork, and preparation. The conversation keeps coming back to what patients need and the role of professional nurses.

His life appears structured around service rather than recognition.

He describes nursing less as advocacy or heroism and more as reliability—showing up, doing the work, and staying steady in situations where emotions run high, and outcomes matter.

During the interview, I realize I have known him professionally for more than five years. The reserve is not distance but consistency. Whether speaking privately or publicly, he responds in roughly the same way: focusing outward.

He does not dwell on the insult in the burn unit story. He remembers the care plan and reflects on his larger commitment to his Black healthcare team colleagues.

He does not dwell on being the first male ANA president. He remembers the pandemic patients.

He does not dwell on awards. He remembers teams and his larger purpose as a nurse.

The pattern repeats until it becomes the biography.

Near the end of our conversation, he talks about younger nurses entering the field and the importance of being seen and valued.

For many Black male nurses, recognition remains limited even within the profession they serve. Grant recognizes the need but frames it carefully, again returning to duty more than grievance.

Underneath the accolades, he suggests, the work is human and reciprocal.

Nursing care flows in both directions, affecting the lives of both the patient and the nurse.

Ernest Grant has spent decades caring for strangers during their vulnerable moments. The profession recognizes him as a leader, but his stories rarely focus on himself. Instead, they highlight patient needs, colleagues, and tough decisions made in difficult situations.

Years ago, in the burn unit, a patient made it clear he didn’t want Grant’s help. Grant stayed anyway.

The burn treatment he and his colleagues provided worked. The patient was discharged and recovered from the second and third degree burns that had brought this unlikely pair of men together.

For Grant, the next shift came, then the one after it.

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