Making Rounds, One Last Time
By Kiley Mallard // Advancement
ou are always such a welcome face here,” Candice Saunders greets Patricia and David, volunteers manning the reception desk at Wellstar Kennestone Cancer Center in Marietta, Georgia. “I wanted to get a picture with you guys.”
“Sure, sure. As many as you’d like,” David says.
“I’m honored,” Patricia replies.
“No, no,” Saunders counters. “This is for me to always remember your smiling faces. You’re just wonderful.”
That short exchange showcases the culture Wellstar Health System’s president and CEO has fostered, one where every member of the team is seen and valued.
“I have worked alongside many leaders, but Candice truly stands apart as she inspires with vision and leads with compassion,” says Dr. David Hafner, emeritus trustee of Wellstar Health System, one of Georgia’s largest nonprofit health-care systems. “She has transformed Wellstar with the same grace and courage she first displayed as a nurse at the bedside, uniting clinical excellence with an unwavering dedication to people, patients and community.”
Saunders recently retired, capping a 50-year career as a nurse and health system executive. She excelled in some of nursing’s most challenging specialties, intensive care and coronary care, and used what she learned at the bedside to become an exceptional administrator. Under her leadership, Wellstar grew from a small group of community hospitals to 11 hospitals and more than 400 medical offices focused on patients and their caregivers.
While Saunders is looking forward to more flexibility, she says she’ll miss working with her team — all 34,000, who serve more than 3 million patients each year.
“That’s where my energy comes from,” she says. “They show up in every season — through moments of great joy and deep challenge. From the Ebola scare to the unimaginable days of the COVID-19 pandemic, through snowstorms that brought our communities to a halt, economic downturns that tested our resilience, and national events that reminded us just how much the world depends on physicians, caregivers and health-care professionals.”
Saunders grew up helping others, assisting her parents with their ministry serving those in need. That led to an interest in nursing and acceptance in USF’s inaugural Bachelor of Science in Nursing class, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
“We were all pioneers,” she says. “We were really laying track for the College of Nursing at USF.”
Saunders found a role model in founding dean Gwendoline MacDonald, who had served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II.
MacDonald’s passion for nursing — and persistence — were important for students of the fledging college. They didn’t have a building yet; classes were held in portable classrooms. With gas shortages, nursing students carpooled to clinical rotations at Tampa General and Morton Plant Hospitals, and the new James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, where Saunders cared for soldiers returning from Vietnam.
“I’m deeply grateful for the education and experiences I gained at USF. They prepared me to follow my heart and live out my calling to serve others,” she says.
She went to work as a surgical floor nurse in South Florida before being assigned to intensive care and, later, coronary care units. Her clinical and leadership skills led to increasing administrative duties, and eventually, she was promoted to chief nursing executive at Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach, Florida.
Founding College of Nursing Dean Gwendoline MacDonald (right) speaks with students from the doorway of one of the five portable classrooms that housed the program in its early years.
Saunders strolls with a few of the 34,000 employees she oversaw as president and CEO of Wellstar.
As she began spending more time in the boardroom than at the bedside, advocating for what patient care teams needed most, she developed a deeper appreciation for every person who makes healing possible. She came to see that caring for patients begins with addressing the needs of those who support the clinicians.
“Every job is so important, and we need every one to take care of people,” she learned.
She also realized she needed to expand her skill set, so she went back to school, earning master’s degrees in business administration and health care administration from the University of Alabama Birmingham.
Saunders was recruited by Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, where she spent nearly a decade, then took her first executive-level position at Inova Health System in Falls Church, Virginia. She joined the Wellstar team as president of Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in 2007.
Her focus shifted from tactical to strategic, from problem-solving to setting the agenda.
“Starting in nursing and never forgetting those roots has helped me provide good guidance,” she says. “What does success look like? A safe quality experience every time. I always look at what I learned in nursing school: I always want for my patient what I’d want for myself.”
Donna Thomas, associate vice president at Viva Health and Saunders’ Wellstar colleague from 2007-2013, says working with her was one of the most formative experiences of her career.
“She has an extraordinary gift for recognizing potential in others and creating opportunities for growth, always leading with encouragement, vision and a genuine desire to see people flourish,” she says.
“We were really laying track for the College of Nursing at USF.”
– Candice Saunders
In 2013, Saunders was appointed executive vice president and chief operating officer of Wellstar, and just two years later, she made history as the organization’s first female president and CEO.
Even after so many years in administrative roles, Saunders is more comfortable in scrubs than a suit, which she continued to don for making rounds with doctors and nurses.
“What I’ve learned is the answers are there,” she says. “We can feel sometimes we have these insurmountable challenges and one of the best consulting groups in the world is your own team.”
Under her leadership, Wellstar has consistently been named to Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and recipient of the Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award. Employee benefits she helped institute include a concierge service, on-site child care, tuition reimbursement, and career growth and development.
“I am a product of her deep belief in developing others and creating space for them to grow,” says Andrew Cox, who served as Saunders’ chief of staff for more than a decade. “Candice embodies leadership that doesn’t just inspire excellence but leaves a lasting legacy of hope, growth and transformation.”
She’s also invested in the next generation of health-care professionals. Saunders established and expanded partnerships with local universities to ensure Wellstar has a reliable pipeline of qualified future employees. Health-care students complete clinicals with Wellstar hospitals, so they enter the workforce already familiar with their systems, processes and staff.
Reflecting on her career, Saunders notes that technology has driven some of the most profound changes in health care. When she joined Wellstar in 2007, patient charting was still done on paper. A few years later, she helped lead the implementation of Epic, laying the foundation for the system’s digital evolution.
Since then, Wellstar has advanced even further, introducing a digital operating model that connects clinical, operational and data insights in real time; expanding virtual health and remote monitoring; and using predictive analytics and AI to improve both patient outcomes and caregiver efficiency.
What began as an effort to digitize records has become a movement to reimagine care through innovation and integration.
“Technology is the area I continue to see accelerate. As I look at my 50-year career, I’m just sometimes in awe of the role of technology,” she says. It’s one of the reasons she helped launch Catalyst by Wellstar, a first-of-its-kind center that provides venture capital to early-stage companies with potential to improve health outcomes and the patient experience.
Saunders (back row, ninth from left) was one of 49 students in the nursing program’s charter class.
She led Wellstar through a period of purposeful growth — expanding from a five-hospital system with 12,000 team members to more than 11 hospitals and 34,000 team members across Georgia. This growth was never about size or scale; it was about ensuring that every Georgian had access to world-class, compassionate care close to home.
“Nursing provided me not only a way to serve my fellow human beings, but also to make a difference in many other ways,” she says. “And I will always be grateful for that.”
She also shares a special family bond with USF — her two sisters are alumnae as well, one a nurse and the other an audiologist. And it was at USF that she met her husband, Don. Together they raised two sons, Jason and Ryan, and now look forward to spending more time with their two beloved granddaughters.
“It’s been a wonderful partnership,” she says.
After passing the CEO torch, she plans to take time to reflect on her next chapter — but she’s certain her heart will remain in health care. Whether through mentoring, advocacy or direct engagement, she intends to continue supporting nurses and all health-care professionals who dedicate their lives to caring for others.
“That calling never leaves you,” she says. “I may have changed roles, but I’ll never stop caring for the people who care for others.”
