Susan Pettorini -D 'Amico

I'm the Vice President of Patient Care Services and Vice President of Operations for a 250-bed acute care hospital, a role I've held for about 8 years. I started my career as a staff nurse and worked my way up through manager, director, and chief nursing officer positions. Before my current role, I held a similar chief nursing officer position at a smaller hospital. I've always had a real passion for learning and always wanting to progress and do better. I would tell people normally, I'm like, if I could, I would be a professional student. I just like to learn, so I just kept going back to school and working towards my terminal degree. That has always helped me to always be inquisitive and research and bring best practices to the bedside. In addition to my hospital leadership role, I teach in masters and doctoral programs for nurses. I've written curriculum that I now teach, and that's probably my most favorite thing to do - teaching and developing other leaders. I think that really makes you understand what it is to be a leader, if you're building other leaders. That's another passion of mine, just developing other leaders and planning succession for the people coming up behind me.