2022 Travel Team Feature: Lindsay & Stefani Markis

We are nine weeks away from our 2022 Operation Walk mission to Antigua, Guatemala. Each year, roughly 30% of our team is brand new and have never traveled with us before. Over the past month, we have been featuring veteran and new members of the travel team so that you can see what brings the team joy at work, at home, and in their communities. This year’s trip will be our seventh to Antigua, and our twelfth trip overall. We enjoy returning to Obras Sociales del Santo Hermano Pedro, our partner hospital in Antigua, which we affectionately call our home away from home. The relationships formed over the last 13 years of traveling there are lasting.

Travel team members generously volunteer their time, talent, and energy toward our shared goal of providing the gift of mobility to patients in need. There are financial and time commitments that each travel team member meets in order to make the mission a reality for our patients, but each year team members reapply so they can experience the mission again and again. Many team members return home and encourage co-workers to apply. Such was the case with these team newcomers.

Please read on to meet our next travel team members to be featured, first time travel team members and sisters, Lindsay and Stefani Markis! Both are from Pittsburgh and graduates of UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing. Lindsay will serve as a floor nurse and Stefani will serve as a pre-operative nurse on the 2022 travel team. We are excited to have a pair of siblings on the trip this year who are both passionate about nursing and their careers. Below, you’ll be able to learn more about Lindsay and Stefani, their careers, and why they applied to Operation Walk Pittsburgh.

Meet Travel Team Members Lindsay and Stefani Markis!

From where do Lindsay and Stefani hail? How’d they start their career in healthcare?

Both sisters hail from Pittsburgh, PA, and graduated from UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing, Lindsay in 2015 and Stefani in 2020. 

Lindsay started her career as a float pool nurse and then began her speciality in labor and delivery in 2017. For three years, Lindsay lived and worked in California. She has since moved back to Pennsylvania and is currently working for UPMC Obstetrics SWAT, which is the local travel nursing team. She has a fourteen year old daughter, Riley, and a female boxer dog, Letty. In addition to nursing, Lindsay loves to work as an actress. In her free time, she loves traveling with her daughter, visiting friends and family, going to the beach or pool, hanging out at the dog park, having cookouts, boating, water skiing, going to the zoo, visiting amusement parks, horseback riding, and anything else that sounds fun!  

Stefani started her career at UPMC Mercy Hospital and is currently working as a travel nurse in San Francisco, CA. She and her fiance are traveling in a fifth wheel trailer with their fifteen year old dog and three senior cats. Stefani’s passions include caring for neglected animals. Before traveling, she spent fourteen years fostering and volunteering with animal rescues. This included fostering kittens as young as two days old, bottle feeding them until they were old enough for adoption. She also fostered and trained dogs to prepare them for their forever home. All four of her current pets are "foster failures," as they say, but she loves them no less. Now that she’s traveling as a nurse, she loves to hike and spend time in nature during her free time, she enjoys the opportunities travel gives her to see new places and environments and loves making new friends and meeting new people while she’s at it.

“It has always been a dream of mine to experience a nursing mission trip. When this opportunity presented itself, I knew that it was meant for me” - Lindsay

What are Lindsay and Stefani most proud of in their careers?

Lindsay is most proud of making a difference in her patients' lives. She recalls many who have told her that she touched their lives and made them feel safe and well taken care of. Stefani is most proud to use her education and training to help people in need and utilizing therapeutic communication to comfort patients. She is proud to know that every day she’s able to touch people's lives.

What brings these sisters to Operation Walk?

Both Lindsay and Stefani have said it has always been a dream of theirs to experience nursing on a mission trip. The opportunity presented itself, and they knew that it was meant for them, especially if they could do it together. 

Stefani met and became friends with a fellow travel nurse, who had been on three previous OpWalk trips. This is how Stefani heard about the mission trip and quickly convinced her sister Lindsay to apply with her. Lindsay’s home hospital is UPMC Magee-Womens hospital and she made the connection with our founder and medical director, Dr. Tony DiGioia, who also works at UPMC Magee. Stefani shared with us that it was appealing “to have the chance experience such an amazing, humbling opportunity.”

“In my career, I’m most proud of being able to use my education and training to help people in need.” - Stefani

What brings Lindsay and Stefani joy?

Although Lindsay and Stefani both work in nursing, they work in vastly different fields. Fortunately, they both love what they do, stating “caring, supporting, and helping others” is what truly brings them both joy. Neither of them have been a part of a mission trip and are anticipating this to be an eye-opening experience. Lindsay shared with us, “Not only to experience this as individuals, but to be able to share it with my sister and best friend…no words can express how blessed I feel.”

When asked the three words she would use to describe Operation Walk Pittsburgh, Lindsay answered, BLESSED, EXCITED, NERVOUS.

Stefani answered, EXCITED, ENTHUSIASTIC, HONORED.

Please consider making a donation in Lindsay or Stefani’s name to support their fundraising commitments. All travel team members agree to a fundraising goal, and donations made in a travel team member’s name are used to purchase critically needed surgical supplies and equipment for the mission. Remember, 100% of all donations made to Operation Walk Pittsburgh directly support patient care. Won’t you help the Markis sisters reach their fundraising goals?