LIsa Brennan RN, PHN, BSN

Health Writer

Lisa Brennan has 15+ years of healthcare experience in public & community health, case management and training. She has the unique experience of also working as a technical writer, systems administrator, web developer, quality assurance engineer for many startups in the Bay Area. She also developed training curriculum and designed help systems. She brings both clinical authority and narrative precision to health writing, translating complex medical realities into human-centered prose.

My first nursing job giving immunizations in the Tenderloin.

Areas of focus

Subject Matter

Beyond technical documentation, I write narrative nonfiction about people, work, and the experiences that shape us. Drawing on my background in public health nursing, I’m especially interested in the often-unseen labor behind the systems we depend on. My stories explore the personal histories, relationships, challenges, and acts of care that bring larger institutions and social issues into human focus. Whether documenting a nurse’s career, a family’s connection through their work, or the teamwork that protects vulnerable patients, I look for the human story beneath the surface, the moments of resilience, vulnerability, connection, and purpose that reveal something essential about being alive.

Areas of Interest

Mental Health

Trauma, depression, anxiety, new psychiatric treatments, and the systems that surround them. Writing that takes seriously what it feels like to be inside the machine.

Addiction & Harm Reduction

Substance use, recovery, and the policies that help or hurt. Grounded in experience working with diverse populations and public-health evidence.

Graphic Medicine

The intersection of comics and healthcare. Using narrative as a clinical and community tool. How images and words together do what neither can do alone.

The Art of Nursing

What it takes to do this work, the skill, the stamina, and the quiet expertise that rarely makes it into the chart. Writing that honors the full weight of being a nurse in a changing healthcare landscape.

Published work