For Mount alumna Margaret Allers ’98, MSN ‘05, a four-decade career in healthcare began not with a hospital, but with a saxophone.
Allers currently serves as Vice President of Patient Care, COO, and CNO at Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall. But she was originally an aspiring music teacher who played the saxophone and piano in jazz ensembles. She saw her initial plans shift when school music programs were cut across the region in the 1980s. After navigating illness and contemplating various paths from law to accounting, she chose nursing – a decision that quickly evolved from a practical pivot into a lifelong passion.
“In the end, it was the best career,” Allers explained. “They say if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I still feel that way, and I’ve been doing it for 41 years."
After earning her initial nursing degree in 1984, Allers headed to Mount Saint Mary College to advance her career, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1998 and returning to complete her master’s as a Nurse Practitioner with a minor in nursing administration in 2005. The Mount provided more than clinical training, she said: it established the core principles that continue to guide her executive leadership today.
“The Mount shaped my foundational skills to be able to critically think, to be able to lead, to be able to serve this community,” Allers explained. “I developed the ability to be accountable and committed to excellence [and] to provide compassionate care. And I’ve used those competencies through my entire career to guide everything that I’ve done that in the end has made me successful.”
Now overseeing patient care operations at Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall, Allers relies on a dual philosophy when evaluating and hiring nursing professionals: the balance of the heart and the mind.
“You need to [be smart], but you must have the heart,” she said. “You must have compassion. Those connections with the patients and the families are incredibly important.”
Thanks to the college’s teaching philosophy aligning with those core nursing values, Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall regularly looks to Mount Saint Mary College when seeking new nursing talent.
“Our Mount grads come very well prepared,” she explained. “They’re well rounded, they’re professional, they come with a purpose, a want to be in healthcare, and an excitement. For us who have been in healthcare for a while, it brings us back to the reason why we chose nursing.”
Allers emphasized that Mount graduates integrate seamlessly into the hospital’s culture of quality care. “They want to be the best that they can be, they’re committed to the excellence that we all strive to provide, and they come prepared to contribute to that success.”
For current students preparing to step onto the hospital floor, Allers emphasizes curiosity, humility, and human connection above all else.
“Always stay curious, stay humble, and embrace every opportunity to learn,” she advised. “Always understand the impact that you can make on patients and families, and that even the smallest things can have a huge impact. Be present for the patient. Ask questions, be engaged – that’s how we build trust with patients and families and continue to have those connections.”
The enduring partnership between the Mount and Montefiore St. Luke's Cornwall is in service to a joint commitment to the surrounding community, she added: “We’re both very deep-rooted in this community; this community is incredibly important. We share the want to do the best that we can for this community, to take care of the patients in this community, to better the healthcare in this community, to educate the newest healthcare providers that are going to come out into this community. And because we’re aligned together, we do a really good job.”