Stephanie Myers earned her Masters of Nursing degree from University of Mississippi Medical Center in May 2020. With that distinction, she was a certified family nurse practitioner.
The milestone passed subtly. There was no graduation ceremony. No celebrations. She simply received her diploma by mail.
There was, after all, a global pandemic, and the United States was shutdown to battle the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Three months prior, classes at UMMC were cancelled. Thankfully, Myers completed her classes and clinical studies before March 13, 2020. All that remained until she could become a practicing nurse practitioner was to take her board exams.
“[The coursework] was practically finished,” Myers said. “We didn’t have a graduation. They mailed us our diploma. I took the boards when the centers opened up in June and July.”
Myers, a native of Tomnolen, comes from a family of nurses. She said deciding what to pursue as a career wasn’t difficult. So when she graduated from Eupora High School in 2007, she went on to Holmes Community College to earn her Associates of Nursing degree. She completed the program in 2010.
“My entire family is nurses,” Myers said. “It was kind of the thing to do. I graduated early, so at 17, I went straight to nursing school. I started working as a nurse at [the age of] 20.”
For the next decade, Myers gained experience in various fields of nursing.
“I’ve done a lot of everything,” she said.
She gained experience in home health, geriatrics, wound care, acute care, and emergency.
“I love the nursing home,” Myers said. “I know it takes a certain type of person to work at the nursing home, but I loved it.”
Pursuing a career as a nurse practitioner was something she always considered. It seemed the natural progression, and she would be able to better serve her patients.
“I always thought that I could do more as a provider than as a nurse,” she said. “I could have a bigger impact and really slow down disease progression.”
As a resident of Webster County, Myers took advantage of the E.H. Sumners Grant, which paid for 100 percent of her higher education.
“They paid for 100 percent of my school – the whole thing,” Myers said. “Everyone should utilize the Sumners Grant. It educates you more, and it puts [that education] back into the community.”
Myers is not the only local healthcare provider to use the Sumners Grant to pursue higher education. Dr. Keith Rushing, Dr. DeWayne Gammel, Nurse Practitioner Amy Gammel, Nurse Practitioner Maggie Taylor, Nurse Practitioner Julia Johnson, Dr. Louis Harrison DDS, and Dr. Mary Catherine Hoover DDS all took advantage of the Sumners Grant to attend medical school, nursing school, and dental school.
“Actually, there is a piece of Sumners’ land that joins my land [in Stewart],” Myers said. “I drove by that piece of land every day, and I never realized that piece of land helped put me through school – 100 percent.”
After graduating from UMMC, the job opportunities during the pandemic were limited.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Myers said. “But God always put me where I needed to be, and one night I got a message from Kim Timbs, [director of clinics for Tyler Holmes Memorial Hospital.] I went in and interviewed, and I started work in about a week.”
Myers began her career at Tyler Holmes in July 2020 and joined the newly-created Fast Track clinic to test for COVID-19, which at that time had began to surge in the area. Myers has worked on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19 ever since.
“They hired me as a [registered nurse] to swab patients [for the COVID test],” she said.
Since then, the Fast Track Clinic works to treat sick patients and continue to test for COVID-19 infections. This limits possible exposure to COVID of patients seeking wellness and routine healthcare at Winona Family Practice and Crossroads Family Medicine from being exposed to the virus.
For Myers, her career as a nurse practitioner has primarily focused on testing and treating patients with COVID-19 from early in the pandemic. Now, she has seen several waves of the virus affect the community as well as constant changes in the treatment protocol for treating the virus.
“At first, nobody really thought [COVID-19] was going to happen, and then it happened,” she said. “We tried to keep up with the CDC recommendations from the beginning, which is 300-plus pages, and it is updated every couple of weeks. The key was educating the community of the recommendations because they changed all the time.”
In 2020, Myers remembered two big waves that struck the local community – July and November. And looking back, she remembered entire families contracting the virus, with some succumbing to the illness. She said with no established treatment for those who contracted the virus and with information about the disease still widely unknown, she said most people just lived in fear of the unknown.
“At that time, we didn’t have the antibody treatment like we do now, and that really helps,” Myers said.
Then in November, the COVID-19 vaccine became available for healthcare providers, and January 2021, it was available to the public. And although she has diagnosed patients with COVID-19 who have already been vaccinated, she noted that the symptoms of the virus were usually mild.
In 2021, the area experienced a third wave of the virus as the delta variant struck in late summer. From her experience, the delta variant did spread more rapidly than the original virus, but they symptoms were basically the same. And like the original strains, the delta variant affected each individual differently.
“It’s all about your immune system and how it reacts,” Myers said.
During her 16-month tenure with Tyler Holmes, Myers continues gain knowledge and experience from accompanying Dr. Keith Rushing and Dr. DeWayne Gammel on rounds at the hospital. Although her role is primarily with the Fast Track Clinic, she will eventually work under Rushing at Winona Family Practice.
“Dr. Rushing has helped me with just about everything,” Myers said.
She also loves working with the Tyler Holmes family.
“I’ve loved working here,” she said. “It’s probably the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve loved it. I’ve loved helping people. I’ve enjoyed working with everyone [at Tyler Holmes]. I love it over there.”
Myers will continue working at the Fast Track Clinic until it is no longer necessary in the fight against COVID. The clinic gives vaccines by appointment on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons. It also is seeing a lot less COVID-19 patients, due to a significant slowdown in cases. She said she has seen many patients with other seasonal illnesses, including the flu.
However, she isn’t ruling out another wave of COVID-19. Last year, the week after Thanksgiving was the start of a significant wave of the virus in the area.
“I think its all about human behavior,” Myers said, in regards to a possible up-tick in COVID-19 cases in the future.
Myers and her husband, David, are the parents of Hannah, 17, Brayden, 15, and Bella, 9. When she isn’t treating patients in the Fast Track Clinic, Myers said she enjoys spending time with her family.
