This DeKalb nurse helped ill patient see solar eclipse

DeKALB – For a 20-something straight out of nursing school, emergency medicine wasn’t necessarily part of Rachel Nagler’s plan.

But Nagler, now 24, of Cortland, said she’s learned to appreciate the intense atmosphere. She’s spent the past three years working as a registered nurse in Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital’s ER in DeKalb.

“It was not something I had my hopes and dreams set on,” Nagler said. “It is an awesome place to work, but it’s also educationally challenging. You’re always learning, but it’s super rewarding getting to work with the patients and the team that I have.”

Nagler said working in the emergency department at a hospital means you put your head down and get the work done, even when you’re unable to predict what will come next.

[T]hat was a really special moment that I hold close to my heart, because it’s one of those small things that you can do for someone who’s experiencing a lot of difficulty – give them a little bit of hope and something to look forward to and a memory to look back on.”

—  Rachel Nagler

“Working in the ER, I would say, can be very intimidating,” Nagler said. “A lot of times with nursing you kind of pay your dues, you go to an inpatient job where you really learn the ropes of bedside nursing, but with [COVID-19] and everything, it was kind of, staff was needed in the ER.”

In 2020, Nagler first worked in the hospital as a transporter – with tasks that include helping nurses move patients – before vaccinations against COVID-19 were available.

“It was really scary, I think, being in nursing school at the time. I guess you just didn’t expect that that would be the world that you walk into in nursing school, because you learn about how to take care of people, and you learn about the medicine and you learn all those things, but you don’t learn how to handle a pandemic,” Nagler said. “Nobody was really prepared for it.”

She said what she finds more rewarding about life in the ER, years in, however, is that the learning never stops.

In the emergency department, the work can be intense, but she said she pushes through knowing that she’s “giving people a break from the pain they’re having.”

On April 8, as people throughout DeKalb County were counting down to the solar eclipse, Nagler went above and beyond for one of her patients.

“I had a patient that ended up being way sicker than she had anticipated, and her plans for seeing the eclipse were kind of not really doable,” Nagler said. “One of the nurse practitioners was able to help me out and get her to be able to see it. So that was a really special moment that I hold close to my heart, because it’s one of those small things that you can do for someone who’s experiencing a lot of difficulty – give them a little bit of hope and something to look forward to and a memory to look back on.”