When Christie Ryan first considered becoming a nurse, she had a different vision of the profession. Growing up in Queens, New York, in an Irish/Italian family filled with firefighters and police officers, she imagined work defined by urgency and adrenaline. Nursing, she thought at the time, sounded far too quiet.
“I thought, well… that’s rather underwhelming,” Ryan recalls with a laugh. “A nurse? There’s no running, no adrenaline.”
That perception changed quickly once she stepped into an intensive care unit during her final clinical rotation. The pace, the teamwork and the stakes felt familiar. The experience launched a career in critical care nursing that would eventually lead Ryan to a leadership role at the Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) in Pittsburgh, where she now serves as Director of Professional Services.
Along the way, Ryan discovered that the systems supporting patient care could be just as compelling as the clinical work itself. Today, that systems perspective shapes how she approaches organ donation and transplantation and how she contributes to national conversations through her involvement with the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance.
Learning and Leading Through The Alliance
The Alliance brings people together who want to share ideas and solve problems together.
Ryan’s systems-oriented thinking naturally drew her to The Alliance, where she has served for two years on the National Donation Leadership Council. Through the Alliance, Ryan has worked with colleagues across the country to tackle one of the more sensitive issues in donation practice: contested first-person authorization.
First-person authorization allows individuals who have registered as donors to make that decision legally binding. Yet in some situations, families object at the time of death, creating ethical and operational challenges for hospitals and organ procurement organizations.
Ryan believes honoring a patient’s documented decision must remain central. “Our work is for the patient who said yes to donation,” she says. “Our tagline is ‘Every donor, every time.’”
She also helped develop educational programming and practical tools to help OPOs and hospitals navigate these situations. One initiative included creating documentation that hospitals can share with families explaining the legal framework around donor registration.
The goal is not confrontation but clarity.
“By focusing on the process and the patient’s decision, hospitals have something solid to rely on,” Ryan explains. “It helps everyone move forward.”
In 2025, she presented an Alliance webinar exploring how organ procurement organizations and hospitals can strengthen joint accountability to reduce missed donation opportunities.
For Ryan, the collaborative nature of that work reflects the Alliance’s unique role in the field. “It brings people together who want to share ideas and solve problems together,” she says. “It’s a chance to learn from others across the country working toward the same goal.”
A Systems Mindset
Ryan says she’s always been drawn to solving problems and understanding how complex organizations work. That curiosity led her to pursue advanced education, including an MBA and a doctorate in nursing practice, and to focus increasingly on hospital operations.
For Ryan, hospital operations are not about bureaucracy. It is about helping talented professionals perform at their best.
“I’ve always been fascinated by how you create a system that allows people to do their very best work,” she says. “You have incredibly smart and experienced people across the ICU, surgery and the operating room. Sometimes they just don’t always see how they all connect. My role has always been helping people understand that everyone makes a difference.”
Her doctoral project on hospital bed throughput illustrates that approach. By studying why patients stalled between ICU, step-down units and discharge, Ryan identified operational barriers that hospitals had overlooked, including physician scheduling practices and limited environmental services support. Addressing those issues improved patient flow and reduced costs across the health system.
The experience reinforced Ryan’s belief that well-designed systems can significantly improve patient outcomes. It also prepared her for the work she would eventually do in organ donation.
My role has always been helping people understand that everyone makes a difference.
Finding the Mission
Ryan had spent years in hospital leadership roles – as a critical care nurse, nursing manager of a critical care unit, and as the chief nursing officer – before she first considered joining CORE, the OPO serving western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Her first interview did not go well. “The COO told me I was overqualified and ended the interview,” she says, recalling the moment with characteristic candor.
Weeks later, he called again with a different opportunity in hospital development. Ryan agreed to learn more, attending a hospital meeting and listening to staff speak about donor families and transplant recipients. Then she met a donor family.
“That was it,” she says. “They talked about the impact donation had on their family and on the recipients. I realized this was work that truly changed lives.”
The encounter reframed the work she had seen only peripherally during her years in critical care. Donation had always been part of hospital life, but she had never witnessed the full human impact. “I saw the passion of the CORE leadership team and I wanted that too,” she says.
Ryan joined CORE nine years ago.
Building Culture Across 150 Hospitals
Today she leads a team of 12 professional services liaisons responsible for education and partnership with approximately 150 hospitals across western Pennsylvania and nearly all of West Virginia. The region spans urban academic centers and rural critical-access hospitals separated by hours of driving.
Their work focuses on building the culture and operational systems that allow donation to occur effectively. The team provides education for physicians, nurses and hospital leaders. They help hospitals implement donation after circulatory death protocols, support brain death testing education and ensure referral processes are understood and followed.
But Ryan emphasizes that the work is about more than training.
“We were never meant to be the group that brought cupcakes and said thank you for calling in referrals,” she says. “Our team is really helping hospitals understand their role in the donation process and holding each other accountable.”
That cultural shift requires trust, persistence and occasionally a firmer tone. Among colleagues Ryan has earned a playful nickname: “The Bronx,” a nod to her New York City roots and her willingness to insist on accountability when needed.
“I’m usually very upbeat and energetic,” she says. “But when something isn’t right, I’ll say, ‘Let’s pull the regulations and look at this together.’ Suddenly everyone gets very interested in solving the problem.”
Her approach blends warmth with clarity about expectations. It is a style that reflects both her clinical background, her operational mindset and her NYC roots.
Ryan met her husband Kevin, at a Steelers/Jets professional football game; she was a Jets fan, and he was a Steelers fan. “It was in my wedding vows that I was going to be a Steelers fan. That there was no Jets anymore. There would be no more green and white jersey. But he let me keep my New York Rangers.”
They live in North Fayette, not far from the CORE office, and have 3 young adult children. “We go to NYC every couple of months to visit my family who are all there.” Interestingly, her true love is country music. “I told the CORE team that for my ten-year anniversary recognition award, I just want you to send me to Nashville,” she says. “I just want a hotel in Nashville for a few days to unwind, listen to good music, and wear cowgirl boots.”
Mentorship and the Next Generation
Ryan’s career has been shaped by mentors who encouraged her to see systems more broadly. Now she tries to provide that same guidance to others.
Her own team includes professionals from a wide range of backgrounds, including nurses, educators, paramedics, caseworkers and even a former funeral director. Ryan intentionally builds a diverse team because she believes different perspectives strengthen collaboration.
“It’s actually fun to watch what they’ve created together,” she says. “They are a team that helps hospitals be accountable to their role in donation.”
Looking Ahead
Ryan remains energized by the field’s evolving challenges and opportunities. From improving hospital partnerships to strengthening national collaboration, she sees continued progress as both necessary and possible.
“We’ve made tremendous strides in donation and transplantation,” she says. “But there’s always more we can do to make the system work better for patients, families and the teams doing this work.”
Her focus remains firmly on the systems that allow those life-saving moments to occur. “If we build the right processes and the right partnerships,” Ryan says, “we give every donor and every recipient the best chance possible.”
