Montreal RN raises awareness on healthcare’s harsh realities through TikTok

John Dela Cruz – or as his followers know him – @nurse.johnn- isn’t just a Montreal emergency room nurse, he’s also a TikTok star with over 3.3 million followers.

Dela Cruz rose to fame during the pandemic when the entire world came to a halt.

Though he initially used the social media platform as a means to “escape reality” during his work-breaks, he one day garnered thousands and eventually millions of views and followers after responding to another user’s video asking people to discuss undervalued and underpaid professions.

To do so, Dela Cruz made his first TikTok video dressed in his scrubs while repeatedly tapping his Registered Nurse badge at the camera without saying a word.

“I just took a video of myself standing in my uniform with my RN badge. I put my phone in my pocket and for some reason something clicked it. And then the next day, my family and friends were like- John, have you seen yourself somewhere in social media?”

“They were like… you went viral!,” he exclaimed.

For Nurse John, posting comedic content about the realities of nursing are in a way a form of therapy.

“This is also a type of nursing for me because I’m nursing other people in a form of social media through laughter, connecting, connecting people together and giving people that space where they can just escape,” said John Dela Cruz.

Shortly after his unprecedented rise to fame, John realized that he was longing for someone to understand what he was going through.

Dela Cruz started working just two days after having graduated from nursing school. Not only did he need to adapt quickly to his new work environment, but he started working as a Registered Nurse in the midst of a global pandemic.

“People really find that my videos are very relatable and at the same time it gives them that sense of community that I was looking for. I wished I belonged, I wished someone understood me, I wished someone is going through the same situation as me,” he adds.

A sense of belonging that he felt after rising to TikTok fame from the nursing community worldwide- and even from patients he was treating.

“People would literally send me private messages like ‘hey John, my grandpa was in the hospital for this long and we were watching your video on the days that we feel so down or on the days that were so low.”

Dela Cruz explains that these types of messages had a particular impact on him considering he chose to pursue nursing because of his grandfather.

Before his grandfather passed away from Alzheimer’s and lung cancer, John recalled caring for him alongside his family at a young age.

“I wanted to do something in my life where I can feel like I am taking care of my grandpa because he passed away almost like a decade now, but then I’m giving back to others,” said John Dela Cruz on why he wanted to become a nurse.

But to find that strength, Nurse John says healthcare workers need to be accounted for first.

“The thing is not we’re not really superheroes. We’re human beings who have feelings, who goes through the same struggle just like everybody else,” explained Dela Cruz of healthcare workers that were often referred to as ‘superheroes’ during the pandemic.

A struggle that Dela Cruz understands all too well- as an emergency room nurse for the past two and a half years now.

“Sometimes the job that you love the most, you start hating it because of the conditions in the situation that you’re put in.”

Having worked himself until burnout, Dela Cruz says he is now putting his mental health first.

“I want to focus on rebuilding myself, focusing on my physical, mental and emotional health. And I want to go back into nursing after my [mental health] leave because that is really what I want to be.”

John Dela Cruz – or as his followers know him – @nurse.johnn- isn’t just a Montreal emergency room nurse, he’s also a TikTok star with over 3.3 million followers. (Credit: @nurse.johnn/ Instagram)