Cassey Hart, '20

Cassey Hart’s choice for where to pursue a degree in health care became obvious quickly.

Hart is from a small town in southeast Missouri called Doniphan. She went to LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) school after high school but moved to Kansas City to further her education in nursing.

“Whenever I moved to Kansas City a few years ago, it was very obvious that Saint Luke's was the best as far as nursing was concerned and I wanted to be among the best,” she said.

Hart finished her BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) degree “among the best” in December at what is now Saint Luke’s College of Health Sciences at Rockhurst University.

She has specific plans for the future, but as it is for most nurses and those in the health care field, it’s the heart of the individual that determines their direction.

For Hart, that was when she was 12 years old in Doniphan and her best friend’s little sister was diagnosed with cancer and had to spend months in a hospital.

“We'd visit her all the time and I remember that it was the nurses that really got her through,” Hart said. “The nurses always knew what would help her; what would get her through the day.”

That experience had a lasting effect on not only the little sister, who recovered, but Hart.

“To this day she can name her favorite nurses from that hospital stay,” Hart said. “And so literally from that point I just... I wanted to impact somebody else in that same way.”

Now with a BSN degree Hart says “opens doors,” that passion for impacting others will lead her to new places with the opportunity to touch the lives of hundreds of people.

“I have so much I want to do – I want to be a flight nurse and I want to do air evac for a few years,” she said. “I also want to get my masters in women's health, and I want to practice as a nurse practitioner for several years, but I think what I'm most excited about is towards the end of my career‚ I really love to teach. I just have a passion for that. I want to teach the future nurses.”

Hart’s decision to join “the best” at Saint Luke’s provided her the training and runway for the rest of her career, but her heart will always be the engine behind it.

“There's a saying that says that ‘They may not remember your name, but they remember how you made them feel,’” she said. “And so I think that is the biggest part of why I'm [in health care] today. I don't care about the glory of it, I really don't.

“I just want to help people in the best way that I can.”