“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s an age-old question we ask kids from the time they’re in preschool until they become young adults ready to chart their own path.
Madi Van Dine, a registered nurse at Mercy Health – Lorain Hospital, always knew she wanted to make a difference in the lives around her. She also knew she would not be satisfied with a typical nine-to-five office job.
So, when Madi’s dad suggested nursing, she knew it was a career she needed to explore. She looked at the different types of roles a nurse can play at practices as well as hospitals, and eventually enrolled at Ohio University in the fall of 2017 to pursue her degree.
“I started taking my pre-requisite classes for nursing school,” Madi shares. “I had a good balance of social life and school my first semester, even qualifying for the Dean’s List. Everything seemed to be working out perfectly.”
However, after her first winter break, Madi began to experience feelings of depressions and anxiety. In fact, her depression symptoms became debilitating.
“We decided it was best for me to move home in February of 2018,” she says. “I was filled with sadness and doubt. I worried about how I was supposed to care for others as a career when I wasn’t taking care of myself.”
Madi began to seek help through therapy and enrolled in classes at Lorain County Community College to overcome the mental hurdles she was facing. She was able to get the help she needed to feel better and graduate from college.
“When I was getting help, it made all the difference when I had health care workers who were truly doing it because they have a passion for helping people,” Madi explains. “I think that even though what I went through was so hard at the time, it ended up happening for a reason – it changed my outlook on life. I found the type of health care worker I wanted to be.”
During this time, Madi began creating YouTube videos about her experience, both as a student in health care and someone battling depression and anxiety.
“In August of 2018, before I began picking up classes at Lorain County Community College, I made a video on how I studied for the nursing entrance exam,” she recalls. “From there, I started to share my nursing journey from then until now. I started with very few followers. Today, I’m at 85,000 subscribers.”
Madi knows the difference she is making in others’ lives and hopes she can inspire them to do the same. Overall, she hopes to encourage people who may be questioning a job in the medical field – whether it’s an office job, a doctor or a nurse, like herself – to take the leap and be ready to change lives.
“When you go into work knowing you may be changing someone’s life with a positive impact being with them during their most vulnerable times is the most rewarding feeling I’ve never experienced before,” she shares. “Being a nurse’s aide and now, a nurse, I got to hear stories of people’s lives and know I was able to make a difference.”.
Madi graduated from Lorain County Community College in the spring of 2022. Today, she works in the labor and delivery unit at Lorain Hospital. She also participated in our nurse extern program as she pursued her degree.
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