The human heart beat is the soundtrack of McKenna Burgwin’s professional life. Burgwin is a nurse practitioner at Upstate Cardiovascular Group. Every day she helps to care for adults living with illnesses like coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease and arrythmia, as well as those who have a family history of coronary disease or a condition such as hypertension that puts them at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke. Every patient, of course, is an individual, with needs of his or her own. Burgwin’s aim is to treat them as such, and to provide them with the care they need to live lives of their choosing. It is, Burgwin says, “the most rewarding, fulfilling work” that she could imagine doing.
A Central New York native, Burgwin knew early on that she was called to a vocation that would in some way connect her to others. However, it wasn’t until she shadowed several medical professionals that she realized she wanted to go into nursing in particular. It appealed to her, among other reasons, because it was challenging, fast-paced and, most important, people-centered. Burgwin wanted to prepare to enter this field in place that was itself nurturing and student-centered, and found that at Le Moyne. She graduated from the College’s Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing Program in 2019 and Family Nurse Practitioner Program in 2021. She is now one of three people in the inaugural cohort of Le Moyne’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program.
While she is still relatively early in her own career, Burgwin is already eager to ensure that the profession continues to nurture competent, caring professionals. She recently began teaching Le Moyne undergraduate nursing students, sharing her expertise and experiences with them. The nursing program is a rigorous one, but she assures them that she and others are there to support them throughout it and ensure that they succeed, just as her professors did for her and her classmates. She reminds her students of the good they have the capacity to do through their work. That is particularly true at a moment when ever-evolving scientific breakthroughs to treat diseases and the use of technology to ensure greater access to health care are shaping the field as we know it.
“I’m glad to be where I am,” she says.
Among the attributes that make Le Moyne’s nursing program distinct is that it offers prospective students direct admission to the program, with a seat guaranteed to them if they meet certain academic requirements. In addition, students are able to take nursing courses during their first year in the program. They also have access to a number of academic resources, including the College’s Writing Center and Quantitative Reasoning Center and a professional nursing tutor.