Student Spotlight: Sean Cook ‘25 — Critical Care Nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center

Published on: November 20, 2025

Husson University Nursing student Sean Cook ‘25 put his classroom learning into action this summer during his partnership with Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Critical Care Unit.

The partnership took him into the fast-paced environment of cardiac critical care, in which he was able to help patients with heart-related ailments receive life-saving treatments.

“I got into the Critical Care Unit, and I ended up falling in love with it,” said Cook. “My driving factor was really to get to that next level of medicine.”

Cook gained a much deeper understanding of the nuances and applications of particular medications and techniques used in critical care, such as Norepinephrine and ECMO, a unique blood pump method that uses a heart-lung machine to help oxygen move through the body.

“Nursing school really is like learning medicine through a fire hose,” said Cook. “So getting to learn more about those critical care meds more in-depth in real time was wildly beneficial to me.”

After working in military healthcare for much of his early adulthood, Cook originally wanted to go back into the field of emergency medicine for his senior partnership. His advisor, Dr. Stephanie Seeley-Bishop, recommended he try bedside critical care instead to get a more varied foundation.

“For all students, well before the semester starts, they get to identify preferences like where they want to be placed and what kind of units they want to be placed on,” said Dr. Stephanie Seeley-Bishop. “And internally, we have a process where we review student performances and preferences and have conversations with students about their learning needs. For Sean in particular, he came with a lot of experience in healthcare with the military, so he and I had some conversations about what would be the best fit for him and what some of my thoughts were. He was open to the critical care placement, which I think really benefitted him.”

The partnership paired well with his classwork, providing a clear opportunity for hands-on experience. 

“Many nurses I’ve talked to in my practice and in my clinicals have said that nursing school’s great, and it gives a ton of foundation,” said Cook. “But where your learning really begins, where you really begin to experience your aha moments in education is actually on the job. And that’s where I think a lot of things started to click for me, was in that partnership experience. Every day I had a new aha moment.”

Cook hopes to continue to work in critical care in Maine after graduating.

— Rin Gately