Sue “retired” from nursing academia to a career in documentary filmmaking. She has produced more than 20 films focused on nursing and social justice. With the Story Center, she led Nurstory, in which hundreds of nurses were guided through telling and producing video stories about turning point moments in nursing and participated in creating a series of interviews with nurses of color, Reckoning with Racism in Nursing. Her documentaries include numerous films advocating for a variety of nursing practice roles and history, a feature about a hate crime on Long Island ( Deputized, 2013) and 2 Berrigan films: Seeking Shelter: A Story of Faith, Place, and Resistance (2018) and The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous (2021) about the Berrigans’ century of peace-making. With Carla Berrigan, she edited a new volume of Daniel Berrigan’s poetry, photos, and letters, Block Island (2025).

Susan Hagedorn earned a BA in English at Ohio Wesleyan University, a BS in nursing at University of Massachusetts, an MS in maternal-child nursing at Boston College, a Certificate in women’s health at the University of Texas Southwest Medical School, a PhD in nursing at the University of Colorado, and Certificates in Video Production at NYU and Documentary Film Studies at The New School. She earned an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

Sue practiced as a psychiatric nurse in several settings and a pediatric and women’s healthcare nurse practitioner in community health centers and youth corrections sites. She taught in the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program at Simmons College and the University of Colorado, and led the Women’s Healthcare Nurse Practitioner the University of Colorado College of Nursing. where she taught in the classroom and clinic, practiced as a nurse practitioner, and did nursing research. She is an author of the NurseManifest. Sue’s nursing career has been dedicated to social justice as a nurse educator, nurse practitioner, philanthropist, filmmaker, and activist.

Susan is the recipient of The Thomas Jefferson Award, the Nightingale Excellence in Caring Award, the Humanitarian Award, Long Island International Film Festival, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She lives in Denver, Brooklyn and Block Island, RI.