Fighting COVID Coast to Coast

For Rachel Hartley, a 2015 B.S.N. and 2020 M.S.N. Cedarville alumna, the battle against COVID has taken her from East Coast to West Coast, from a small community hospital in the Caribbean, to a bustling suburban hospital in Ohio, from one surge at the beginning of the pandemic, to another one almost a year later.

In the midst of caring for patients at Mercy Health - St. Anne Hospital in Toledo, Rachel and her husband, Taylor, came down with the coronavirus. They were blessed with milder symptoms and were able to convalesce at her parents’ house in Westerville, just outside Columbus.

In her current assignment, treating patients at PIH Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles, she’s been reminded of the devastation of New York, where many of her patients never recovered. In the midst of this healthcare storm, God has used her once again to point people to Christ for solace, peace, and an eternal hope.

“I hope the Lord will give me strength with my co-workers who are so exhausted, and who have been doing this for months,” she said in an interview in January. “To be a refreshment is my goal. And in everything I do, just to point to the Lord and glorify His name, to share the Gospel with my co-workers and my patients because Jesus is the only hope that we have or need.”

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Rachel’s yearlong battle the COVID-19 pandemic was part of a fall 2020 Cedarville Magazine feature titled “Nurses on the Frontlines,” which tells the stories of nursing alumni serving in the middle of this healthcare crisis.