A Heart for Helping People
A Spotlight on Shannon O’Hearn, ’16
Written by Jessie Fox
Senior exercise-science major Shannon O’Hearn always had a heart for helping people, and her fascination with anatomy led her to believe that she belongs in the medical field.
This belief was confirmed the night she saved a man’s life.
It was past midnight on Fourth of July weekend, and the Boston Airport was nearly empty. Shannon was exhausted and waiting for her boyfriend when a woman ran to the front desk shouting, “This man needs help!”
“I looked over, and it was the man who had been sitting in front of me. He was probably in his mid-thirties, and he had a five-year-old son,” Shannon remembers. “He was sliding down in his chair, and I was guessing that he had had a heart attack. So I ran over, and I just went for the mouth to mouth. It’s all kind of a blur now.”
Shannon remembers the man was still breathing when she first laid him on the floor. But soon, his face began to turn blue.
“He stopped breathing, so that’s when I started giving CPR, and then his color came back,” Shannon said. Though the paramedics eventually arrived to take over, it was Shannon’s quick action that prompted a flight attendant to tell her, “You saved that man’s life.”
Shannon was first drawn to the medical field because she looked up to her mom, who is a nurse. When she arrived at Hillsdale, Shannon picked exercise science as a major because she thought it was the most diverse of the science majors.
“Exercise science is a newer major, and while you still get the biology and chemistry aspects, you also get the sports medicine side of it,” she explained. “You get the athletic training and exercise physiology and biomechanics and how the body works. You’re applying what you learn in biology and chemistry to the actual body.”
Last summer, Shannon took the skills she’s learned to the Dominican Republic with a team of two thousand missionaries from missions.me. It was the world’s largest mission trip to date.
Shannon worked in triage, taking blood pressure, heart rate, and temperatures and then sending patients on to see doctors, dentists, pharmacists, or a chiropractor.
“Every time our bus rolled up people were running after us,” Shannon said. “The lines every day got longer and longer, wrapping miles around the streets. People were so happy and grateful that we were there.”
For Shannon, the experience proved both eye-opening and motivating. Her clinic alone helped over three thousand people in just five days.
“It is obviously by the grace of God that we were able to do that,” Shannon said. “It was extremely sad to see these people who had never seen a doctor before, never had a teeth cleaning, never had people asking how they are. It showed that there is so much to do out there, and that gave me even more of a drive.”
Over the past year, Shannon has also worked and shadowed in hospitals in both her hometown of Toledo, Ohio, and Hillsdale. She started in the ER, where she was faced with a fast-paced environment and a variety of patients. This year, however, she has found her niche in “the rush” of the operating room.
“This year at the Hillsdale hospital, I’ve been in surgeries, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely,” Shannon said. “Right now I’m just cleaning beds and stocking things, but they often pull me into surgeries. I’ve been able to see some cool things like tibia repair, bowel reconstruction, and eye surgeries. It would be awesome to assist a doctor in surgery. The anatomy of the body is amazing. I would love to be able to help people in that way.”
Shannon’s love for surgery is fitting, as she named anatomy and gross human anatomy as two of her favorite Hillsdale courses. And unlike most undergraduate institutions, here at Hillsdale, students in these classes work with cadavers.
“There’s something that you can learn from cadavers that you never get out of a textbook,” Shannon said. “We’re extremely lucky to have cadavers; the opportunity to work with them has set me apart from other candidates applying for PA school.”
Since her sophomore year, Shannon has wanted to be a physician’s assistant because of their growing importance in the medical field and their flexibility in specialty and hours. In her grad-school interviews this year, she has noticed how much she stands out as an applicant.
“I’m different than the average pre-med major,” Shannon said. “I’ve taken all the classes that the pre-med majors have, but I’ve been able to apply those with my exercise science. While I was able to complete my exercise-science major, I was also able to fit in all the same pre-med classes.”
Shannon said that her Hillsdale education has taught her more than just the scientific knowledge that she will need to continue her education.
“Hillsdale has prepared me in ways that big schools can’t,” she said. “The values that we learn at Hillsdale can help you anywhere in life. The liberal arts have taught me how to learn. This school teaches the principles that I always want to keep with me.”
Though Shannon is excited to begin her career as a PA, she has even bigger plans for the future.
“I definitely want to get my PA degree and as much training and knowledge as I can,” she started. “But from there I would love to take teams of students to third-world countries. I want to be the best that I can be so that I can be the best leader.”
Jessie Fox, ’17, is a native Michigander from Chelsea, MI, studying marketing/management and Spanish with a minor in journalism. She is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, works for Campus Recreation, and is an assistant editor for the college newspaper.