For Dan Egan ’22 working as a nursing assistant during the pandemic “lit a fire under me” to go into the healthcare industry once he graduated in May.
“I started working in the intensive care unit (ICU) in 2020,” Egan said. “Just seeing that side of how things work, I sort of fell in love with the work that critical care nurses do.”
Egan follows a family legacy of nurses that includes his mother, grandmother and an aunt.
“I’m continuing the family business,” he joked.
In addition to completing the rigorous program at Husson’s School of Nursing, Egan spent all four years on the Husson men’s swimming and diving team. He was named the captain of the team his senior year.
“It was brutal,” Egan admitted when asked how he balanced the two. “I had a ton of clinical hours that I had to complete, classes, homework and of course going to practice and swim meets with my team. It was hard and I feel like I went a little crazy, but I did it.”
He credits the personal connection he has with instructors at Husson for keeping him in his lane, especially in the early years.
“My freshman and sophomore year at Husson, I was probably the laziest, most impulsive student ever,” Egan admits. ”I would cause outbursts in class. I was really a problem.”
But then Egan began working in the ICU at a hospital in Massachusetts, where he’s from, and that experience changed everything.
“I had so much respect for the critical care nurses that I worked with,” he said. “They were constantly moving from task to task and nothing flustered them. It just made me fall in love with the nursing program at Husson.”
Egan plans to work in a hospital after graduation. He also hopes to continue his swimming talents, but as a coach rather than competitor.
“Coming into Husson, I chose the school because of its high pass rate for the nursing board exam,” he says. “But while I was here, I developed a phenomenal rapport with my faculty. They know me by my first name and I respect every single one of them.”