COVID-19 changed the lives of everyone in healthcare, perhaps none more so than Emily Cartin. Her father succumbed during the first surge of the coronavirus, in the same hospital where she continued to come to work each day.
Despite her grief, Cartin shined during the pandemic, becoming an interim clinical manager and then interim nurse manager for makeshift units that were created as the hospital’s patient census swelled. “We all rolled up our sleeves to get these non-traditional bedsides up to speed,” said Cartin about attending to the sick in an auditorium. “It was step up or step out.”
Currently a nursing coordinator for the bariatric program, it was during the dark days of COVID that Cartin could hear her father’s voice. “He pushed me to continue to follow the passion in my heart. Being a nurse practitioner was his goal for me.”
