Two Sisters “Shine” at Fisher

Life for a college student can be very stressful. Add a full-time job to that, and you could say it is hectic. Make that job serving as an EMT, and you could call it down right impossible. But sisters Mary Grace and Helen Rose Shine handle the pressures of their dual lives with ease.

Growing up in Fairport, New York, both sisters were homeschooled before deciding to attend St. John Fisher College. Mary Grace is a senior biology major with minors in chemistry and Spanish and Helen Rose is a sophomore marketing major with a minor in psychology. While juggling course work and active campus lives, the sisters decided to commit to working as EMTs, too. Both said the experiences as EMTs while being students can be enjoyable, if not a bit … strange.

“It’s super interesting because you go and get in these odd situations. Then you have to go to class and act super normal and pretend you did not just see all of these things you just saw,” Helen Rose said.

Mary Grace agreed.

“You never know when you’re going to have a bad day,” she said, explaining that one day you might be helping someone’s grandmother recover from a fall, and the next, you’re treating someone in a cardiac arrest or responding to an overdose.

“It varies, which is why I love this job so much,” she said.

As the pandemic hit, the sisters were deployed to Texas for two weeks in July to help at a hospital treating COVID patients.

“Being down there was a great experience,” said Helen Rose. “My shifts were 12 hours a day and we got to meet some really great people and learn what it was like to work in a hospital setting.”

Being an EMT and having the ability to be involved in a COVID relief program in Texas has really helped these two sisters for their future career goals.

“I like the patient care aspect of this job,” said Mary Grace, “It’s very connected to what I would like to do in the future and it gives me a lot of experience.”