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When Stephen Sandlund ’05, M.S.N. ’13 treats injured, traumatized, or sick patients in hospitals around the globe, he is constantly aware of how the Great Physician wants to work in the midst of his service.

As Denise Martin ’87 serves her young patients and their families at Dayton Children’s Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, she invites future nurses from Cedarville’s School of Nursing to observe and learn how their careers can have eternal significance.

Over the course of 20 years, Lois Baker, Senior Professor Emerita of Nursing, tirelessly led teams of nursing students to Togo not only to care for physical needs, but to see patients’ lives transformed through using nursing as a ministry for Christ.

These stories represent hundreds of sacrificial servants who are graduates and faculty of the Cedarville School of Nursing.

Faithful on the Frontline

Stephen Sandlund ’05, M.S.N. ’13 serves as a nurse practitioner with his dad’s family practice office and in the emergency room at Genesis Hospital, both in Zanesville, Ohio. While he regularly goes the extra mile to serve his patients, he also goes the extra thousands of miles to treat the shell-shocked, the wounded, and the seriously ill as part of a Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief team.

This summer, he spent a month in Chernivtsi, a city in western Ukraine, serving refugees running from the horrors of war and treating locals with long-term healthcare needs.

“Quite a few of the refugees were just stoic,” Sandlund shared. “But as you began treating them, they warmed up to you and told stories about how they ran from their homes and only took a suitcase of clothes, how they drove through shelling and gun fights and almost got shot themselves.”

One patient who lived close to the Russian border shared with Sandlund that she had been taken from Ukraine and her captors attempted to force her to switch her citizenship. She escaped and made the 10-day journey to the hospital in Chernivsti.

“She was frustrated and confused,” Sandlund said. “She could not understand why people who lived so close to Ukraine were now shooting at them and shelling them.”

This was not Sandlund’s first time with Samaritan’s Purse. He served previously in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019, where he was part of a team attempting to head off an outbreak of the Ebola virus, and in 2017, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces retook the city of Mosul from the Islamic State.

“We were the only trauma hospital on the east side of Mosul, so we saw everything,” Sandlund recalled. “Shrapnel, amputations, lacerations, burns, gunshots. Even though we had good security, that was the most dangerous place I’ve been.”

And while one such trip might be enough for many, Sandlund senses the Lord drawing him to disaster relief in the future.

“Cedarville helped me form this outlook on the world,” he noted. “From a lot of the chapels I went to and throughout the Bible, we are called to lay down everything, to follow God above all comfort. I have good jobs and can make a decent income, but am I living out my faith and following God to the ends of the earth, reaching people in need who are spiritually open?”

Blessed to Invest

Nursing is a demanding profession. It requires a combination of care and compassion, strong problem-solving, a strong health science knowledge base, and the ability to respond quickly and confidently. The application of that heart, mind, soul, and spirit to the profession can be draining and challenging.

But Denise Martin ’87, who serves as a continuity of care coordinator and discharge planning nurse at Dayton Children’s Hospital and as an Adjunct Nursing Skills Lab Instructor at Cedarville, has also mentored countless Cedarville School of Nursing students, who have benefitted firsthand from her skill, devotion, and mentorship.

In addition to practicing as a Registered Nurse, Martin serves as a liaison between Cedarville’s School of Nursing and clinical sites in the community. In this role, she ensures the students’ clinical objectives are met at different hospitals.

Martin also coordinates the externship program at Dayton Children’s Hospital. Here she watches students put the pieces of clinical care and academic knowledge together to begin thinking like a nurse for the first time.