Chamberlain Student Macartie St. Louis: Small Steps, Heroic Outcomes

Chamberlain BSN candidate Macartie St. Louis (Miramar campus, Class of 2023) is mastering both hi-touch and hi-tech in his nursing education. An avid Instagram user (@_Cartie), he quizzes his followers, asking them medical questions and giving medical tips. “I tell them what to look out for - signs of hyperglycemia or diabetes - which are very common in the African-American community,” he says.

Using his education as a bridge to dialogue and knowledge-sharing, Macartie (who prefers to be called Cartie) keeps an eye out for family and friends too. “I want to see those around me healthy, I want to see them successful and striving and exercising and doing the best that they can for themselves.”

It is family that has looked out for Cartie as well. “My aunt was a nurse, and she was my inspiration. Her message to me has always been to be great in whatever you do, to be successful. So I’ve applied that to nursing.”

His approach to patient care is simple and compassionate: “Patients are human beings and need to be treated with respect – don’t ever forget that's somebody's daughter, that's somebody's father, that's somebody's grandfather that you're taking care of.”

That is how he approaches health equity as well: every patient, those under his direct care as well as all patients in the unit, deserve fair and equal care. That integrity and courage have not waivered during COVID-19. “I feel like the pandemic has made things a little bit more difficult, but patient care has been very rewarding.”

“I remember my very first COVID patient; oh, my gosh, I was so scared,” says Cartie, whose beloved aunt passed away from COVID-19. “I had to remind myself this is what nurses do. They’re brave. They save people. So I gowned up, put on my PPE, I walked into that room, and I just started talking to my patient about his day, just treating him like a human being, making him feel comfortable and safe.”

The patient’s entire face lit up, as did Cartie’s perspective. “I came out of that patient’s room better than I went in.”

Mindful and self-aware, Cartie has long focused on his future and his legacy. “It’s important to me that I am a role model for other African American students and nurses,” he says. The standards that I'm setting for myself, I'm also setting for others who will follow in my footsteps.”

“Nursing is more than just taking care of people; it's about being an advocate for your community and being inclusive of all communities.”

Creating a network of diverse healthcare professionals matters tremendously to Cartie. “By the time I retire from the nursing industry, I will have assumed leadership positions, perhaps focused on a specialty like nurse anesthesia, or even have become a medical doctor,” he says. “I want to help inspire and propel other diverse people to pursue their dreams as well.”

A quote from Frederick Douglas resonates with Cartie: "If there's not struggle, there is no progress." Struggle, Cartie believes, breeds progress. “Progress is the child of struggle. If you see progress in somebody, it's because at one point they had a struggle that they overcame.”

A year and a half ago, being a nurse was just a dream for Cartie. He wanted to be a nurse, but the journey would be long and arduous. “I thought to myself, ‘I have all these struggles, how am I going to overcome them?’” His steadfast determination and progress have come by taking it one day at a time and trying to be 1% better than he was the day before.

“Now when I'm faced with a struggle, I sit down, I take some time, I meditate on it, and I figure out a way I can tackle it. And out of that struggle will come progression.”

Cartie wants others to overcome their doubts and to follow their hearts. “If you're dreaming of becoming a nurse, go for it. The fact that you're dreaming of it means you can already envision yourself in those scrubs.”

By Chamberlain University