NORTH LIBERTY, IOWA (May 21, 2025) — May is National Nurses Month, and it’s a chance to celebrate the nurses in an array of jobs. At Iowa Donor Network, nurses on the team help facilitate lifesaving organ transplants. They use their clinical background to make quick, heavily-informed decisions on donor potential and transplant matches.
Fernanda (Fern) Marrufo worked in a Neuro Trauma Intensive Care Unit (ICU) neuro trauma in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at a Des Moines Hospital. In that work, she saw many neurological injuries that resulted in organ donation. Then she took the leap to work at Iowa Donor Network in what she calls “the best decision I took in my entire life.” Now she works as an Organ Utilization Specialist Team Lead at Iowa Donor Network, where she has worked for six years.
Margaret Badger began her work as a nurse in the operating room and ICU where she witnessed the full circle of donation in her work on the team procuring organs from a donor one day and then taking care of one of the recipients the next day.
From there, she worked as a travel nurse before she began working at an organ procurement organization in Texas. She now works as an Organ Resource Supervisor at Iowa Donor Network.
“It takes a lot of people to make one organ donation happen, and it takes a lot of people to make transplants occur,” said Marrufo. “It’s a physical and mental effort to make miracles happen.”
Labs, CT images, and hospital charts — donor medical history is evaluated to determine organ donation potential. The next step is a potential match-list, including a long list of recipients that might match with the life-saving gift. Then those potential matches are reviewed with the transplant teams to evaluate and coordinate recovery and transplant.
“Having that experience as a bedside nurse is vital. The clinical piece of knowing what’s going on with a patient and how hospitals function helps us,” said Badger. “I got to witness the miracle of donation on multiple occasions as a nurse, and that is why I have been in the organ donation industry for twelve years. Once I joined this industry, I learned all about all the real miracles it takes along the way to make donation and transplant happen. I am honored to be in this work to witness miracles every day, and I am blessed beyond measure to be able to utilize my nursing degree and knowledge in this capacity.”
Utilizing their clinical backgrounds, Marrufo and Badger are able to quickly understand a hospital chart, look for red flags, and screen matches. In these fast-paced jobs, they have to rely on their medical backgrounds to make the best possible match that will lead to transplant success and the recipient’s well-being.
“We do meaningful work, and we want to give donor families an informed decision,” said Badger. “There’s a medical step after death, and it’s organ donation. I love working at Iowa Donor Network.”
Long before she began to work at Iowa Donor Network, Marrufo wrote college papers on organ donation. It’s a mission she found herself pulled toward.
“I truly love what I do,” said Marrufo. “I do it for the mission. I was really young when I dedicated my life to the mission of organ donation, and every day when I leave work I know I have done everything I can to get someone off the recipient list.”
To learn more about registering as a donor and the way Iowa Donor Network advocates for organ and tissue donation, visit IowaDonorNetwork.org.
About Iowa Donor Network (IDN)
Iowa Donor Network is a non-profit organization that serves as the primary contact for organ- and tissue-donation services for the state of Iowa. Certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, IDN coordinates organ and tissue recovery, educates health-care professionals and communities, and provides support to donor families. IDN collaborates with health-care partners, organizations, and volunteers statewide to honor the gift of life and inspire others to donate.
