Nurse Who Survived 7 Open-Heart Surgeries Now Leads the Heart Program That Saved Her Life

When Erin Hunter-McPhan walks through the halls of Children’s Medical Center Dallas, she does so with a perspective few healthcare professionals will ever know. She is not only a program manager in quality outcomes at the Children’s Health Heart Center, she is also a former patient whose life was saved there multiple times.

From one nurse to another, her story is a powerful reminder of why the work nurses do matters.

Born With Tetralogy of Fallot

Hunter-McPhan underwent her first open-heart surgery at just 9 months old. “By God’s grace and the care of the medical team, I’m still here thriving, seven open-heart surgeries later,” she says.

She was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a complex congenital heart defect involving four structural abnormalities of the heart. One of the most serious components is a ventricular septal defect, which interferes with normal oxygen-rich blood flow to the body. Her case was severe. During her first surgery, she experienced cardiac arrest and a stroke and remained in intensive care for three months.

Tetralogy of Fallot affects thousands of infants each year in the United States. Surgical outcomes have improved dramatically over the past several decades, but patients with complex presentations often require multiple interventions throughout childhood and sometimes into adulthood.

For Hunter-McPhan, that meant growing up in pediatric cardiology units, surrounded by monitors, alarms, and long nights. And nurses.

Finding Safety in the Midst of Complexity

Despite the clinical intensity of her early years, Hunter-McPhan recalls an unexpected feeling during her hospital stays. “I remember never feeling scared,” she says. “I felt like I was seeing extended family.”

Nurses understand the high stakes of congenital heart disease, including post operative assessments, neuro checks, and the careful balancing of fluids and oxygenation. For Hunter-McPhan, those highly technical tasks translated into something else entirely, a deep sense of safety, familiarity, and reassurance. Those are the moments patients remember long after lines are pulled and wounds have healed.

When Compassion Extends Beyond the Unit

In 2004, when Hunter-McPhan was 14, her father, Grand Prairie Police Sergeant Gregory Hunter, was killed in the line of duty. The loss was devastating. What happened next shows the depth of the bond between her family and her care team. “The doctors and nurses who had treated me came to my home and attended the funeral,” she recalls. “They didn’t have to. It certainly wasn’t required of them. But it shows the love they have for others.”

For Hunter-McPhan, that gesture embodied family centered care at its most human. It was not driven by policy or protocol. It was driven by relationship and compassion, and it helped shape her understanding of what nursing can mean beyond the bedside.

Choosing Nursing After Living It

After years of navigating life as a cardiac patient, Hunter-McPhan chose to become a nurse. She had seen firsthand that nursing is more than medications and assessments. It is presence during uncertainty, steady hands when families are overwhelmed, and a calm voice in the middle of crisis.

Before moving into leadership, she spent more than seven years at the bedside at Children’s Health, often caring for pediatric cardiac patients with diagnoses similar to her own. When she spoke to anxious parents, she was not just explaining a care plan. She was someone who had lived it. “My primary goal is to give back for all the care and support I’ve received,” she says. “You don’t know what other people are facing, and that moment of compassion can mean the world.”

From Bedside Nurse to Quality Outcomes Leader

Today, Hunter-McPhan serves as a program manager in quality outcomes at the same heart center that once fought to save her life. Her work now focuses on systems of care, improving safety, strengthening processes, and supporting better outcomes for patients and families. She brings a dual lens to that role, the clinical eye of a nurse and the lived experience of a former patient.

Research has shown that healthcare professionals with personal illness experience often demonstrate higher empathy and patient centered awareness. Hunter-McPhan’s journey reflects that reality. She understands clinical metrics, but she also understands what it feels like to lie in a hospital bed, watch monitors, and wait for answers.

The Ripple Effect of Nursing Care

For nurses reading her story, Hunter-McPhan’s journey is a reminder that the impact of nursing care often extends far beyond discharge. A nurse who made her feel safe at 9 months old may never know she helped inspire a future nurse leader. A team who showed up at her father’s funeral may never fully grasp how deeply that act of compassion influenced her path.

Nurses do not always see the ripple effects of their work. But they are there, in the careers patients choose, the trust they carry into future healthcare encounters, and the ways they give back.

A Full Circle Legacy

Today, when Erin Hunter-McPhan walks through the halls of the Children’s Health Heart Center, she carries three identities with her. She is a former patient, bedside nurse and quality outcomes leader. Her life is a full circle story of how exceptional nursing care can shape futures as powerfully as it heals bodies.

From one nurse to another, her journey reflects the heart of the profession, and the possibility that the patient you care for today may become the nurse who carries your legacy forward tomorrow.

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