Growing up, Madison Sanderson, RN, always knew that whichever career path she chose, she would be helping people in some way. “I was always drawn toward helping people heal emotionally and physically, and nursing was the perfect opportunity for that,” she says.  

As it turned out, her cousin, with whom she is very close, went into nursing, and Madison soon followed. She is now an Assistant Nurse Manager on two floors, Vascular Surgery Stepdown and Heart and Lung Transplant Stepdown, at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus. In this role, she continues to care for patients while also providing guidance and support to the nurses on these floors. 

Helping Hands 

Both of Madison’s departments are leaders in their respective areas (Cleveland Clinic’s Lung Transplant program has performed more than 2,500 lung transplants, and the Department of Vascular Surgery performs more than 8,000 procedures annually). Madison attributes much of their success to that old standby — teamwork.  

“Everyone’s very willing to help each other,” she says of the nursing staff. “Everyone’s offering help before you even have to ask for it. They know that they’re not just helping you, they’re also helping the patient. People really treat it as though the whole floor is their responsibility, and so is everything there.” 

A Rewarding Experience 

Madison’s natural warmth and empathy are greatly appreciated by patients and their families, and led to her nomination for the DAISY Award, which is given by the DAISY Foundation to “celebrate and recognize nurses by collecting nominations from patients, families, and co-workers.” In earning the nomination from the family of a patient, Madison had made quite an impression on the patient’s young granddaughter. 

“She was about five years old, and she thought nurses were the coolest. She just wanted to hold our hands and walk around the unit and have us show her everything. It was a day where I didn’t have patients of my own, so she and I walked around the unit and looked at everything she was really interested in.” 

The granddaughter was especially intrigued by the ID badges worn by the caregivers, so Madison made the girl her own badge with a lanyard so that she could pretend to swipe in and out. “She was running to all of our swipe access doors and watching all the nurses and pretending to do what they were doing,” Madison says. “And she loved it. She was so proud she had to run and tell her grandpa.” 

Endless Possibilities 

For Madison, one of the main attractions for Cleveland Clinic caregivers is the ease with which career aspirations can be accommodated. “There are so many different ways that you can excel here,” she says. “If there’s a specific specialty that you’re really interested in, we probably have at least one floor dedicated to it!” 

Madison believes the career possibilities and the opportunities for education and advancement at Cleveland Clinic are unlimited. For instance, she moved into the Assistant Nurse Manager role just two years after first joining Cleveland Clinic. She notes that the transition process was very smooth.  

“It wasn’t a hard transition to leadership because there are so many steps to make our bedside nurses into leaders,” she says. “Anything that you want to learn, you can learn here. Whatever skill you want to develop, there are classes for that.” 

And the other, more gratifying benefits, are those that are an integral part of the healing profession — seeing your patients recover from illness and go on to thrive. “Transplant especially has been so rewarding, seeing people come in so sick and leave with either new lungs or a new heart, or both,” Madison says. “Then they come in to visit a year, two years, three years later, and they tell us that they’ve been able to see their kids or grandkids graduate. It’s really rewarding to know that you were part of that.”