Embers of Care: How a Filipino Nurse Is Turning Migrant Health Workers' Stories Into Art

Filipino nurse and artist John Yayen moved from Palawan to Cambridge, England and turned a hard first winter into Embers of Care, a 100-portrait series honoring migrant healthcare workers across the UK. His paintings now hang in NHS trusts and the Royal College of Nursing's permanent collection. In this episode of the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast, hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL talk with Yayen about why visibility matters for internationally educated nurses, how he interviews each subject before painting them, and what the UK story has in common with the experience of Filipino, Caribbean, and African nurses in the United States. They cover: Yayen's path from Palawan to UK nursing licensure in 2022 How donating paintings to save storage space grew into a national project Partnerships with NHS trusts, the Royal College of Nursing, Counterpoints Arts, and Arts Council England The dual audience for the series: migrant workers who see themselves, and locals who see the people behind the scrubs His advice to nurses with a creative side Article about the podcast: https://nurse.org/news/john-yayen-emb... A companion to our August 2026 Love n' Leary conversation on Filipino nurse immigration in the US: https://nurse.org/news/filipino-nurse... Learn more about Embers of Care at https://www.yayenart.com/embersofcare Follow John Yayen: Website: https://www.yayenart.com Instagram:   / yayenart   LinkedIn:   / john-yayen-11b8502a5   Related Nurse.org coverage: The Filipino nurse pipeline: https://nurse.org/news/filipino-nurse... Nurse Unseen documentary and US workforce share: https://nurse.org/news/filipino-nurse... Working in the US as a foreign-educated nurse: https://nurse.org/articles/work-in-us...