A patient dying every single day. Sometimes two or three in the same day, many of them not able to feel the touch of a loved one before passing. All this as a nurse, suited up in a hazmat suit, stood by and watched helplessly. That was the traumatic reality for 2014 SEMO graduate and front line nurse Molly Eggleston in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eggleston was a nurse in the cardiac ICU at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis when the pandemic started. It wasn’t long before she was part of a team of people caring for Covid-positive patients. And, as she’ll tell you, it’s a devastatingly difficult and exhausting job.

Through it all, Molly continued her education. She recently obtained a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. She will soon begin a journey as an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner in St. Louis.