“Most of us have experience with luck, both given and earned. It is what you do with luck that determines your journey, your failures, and your successes.”
Joe Ferreira is the President and CEO of the South Florida Donor Network and CEO and President of Nevada Donor Network, an organization dedicated to the recovery and allocation of organs, eyes and tissues for transplantation along with community education around the importance of donation and transplantation to humanity. Prior to starting his current position in 2012, Joe already had extensive experience in the field, having spent 14 years at Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency in Miami, Florida where he served as the Director of Clinical Operations for several years.
As a boy, Joe spent his summers in a remote southeast region of Brazil, where his parents were born. He recognized the immense odds that his parents had to beat in order to thrive. This was a region with limited access to societal resources, with little educational support. Yet his father trained to be a doctor and his mother became a teacher. Their drive planted the seed of ambition to overcome obstacles that informed all of his later success stories. But it was not a characteristic that took root immediately. Joe floundered as a young student, graduating high school by the skin of his teeth. It was here that he started setting lofty goals for himself. With his parents’ example in his periphery, he decided to get a college degree. He set his sights on the University of Miami and was accepted after one year at a community college. After he earned his B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology and while working at the OPO in Miami, he graduated from the University of Miami with his MBA with a specialization in Healthcare Administration and Policy.
Companies Joe's worked with
After college, Joe started working for the University of Miami’s Organ Procurement Organization (OPO), one of only 57 such organizations in the country. He spent 14 years at Miami’s OPO, the last seven of which he served as the Director of Clinical Operations. In 2012, he got his chance to lead an OPO in Nevada. “It was the worst performing OPO in history,” he remembers. “And the only one at the time to receive an imminent shutdown threat by the federal agency authority for OPOs.” Undaunted by the odds, and knowing there were only a handful of these positions in the entire country, he accepted. Since he took the job, his top-down reform of the Nevada Donor Network created one of the premier OPOs in the world.
Ferreira has served as the President of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) in 2020-2021, Member-at-Large on the AOPO Executive Committee and Chairman of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of AOPO. He is a Certified Member of the National Association of Healthcare Quality (NAHQ), a Certified Procurement Transplant Coordinator (CPTC) and a former Faculty Member of the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization (NATCO). Joe is a member of the International Society for Organ Donation & Procurement (ISODP), he is a former Board Member of the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and a past Board Member of the Nevada Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). He has also served as an At-Large Representative on four separate committees of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network/United Network for Organ Sharing (OPTN/UNOS) and most recently served as a Board member of the OPTN/UNOS in 2020-2022.
Joe's Family
Dr. Aleksandra (Sasha) Ferreira grew up in a small town in the Ural Mountain region of Russia with her family with very humble means. Her supportive parents, Viktor and Liubov Betcher worked hard to support their 2 daughters, Aleksandra and Yulia, to give them what they could to succeed and accomplish their dreams. Driven and ambitious without regard for her circumstances, Sasha focused on academic studies and her skills as a classical pianist and ballroom dancer while dreaming to achieve her goal of becoming a physician to treat patients in need. Through her hard work and focus she was granted a prestigious scholarship Future Leaders Exchange Program through the US state department which provided her the opportunity to become a student in the United States.
At the age of 14 she left her homeland, her loved ones and everything she knew in her Russian hometown to study abroad while living with a host family in the US. Upon graduating from Hill McCloy High School With a gracious and humble gratitude, she continued her academic journey and attended Mott Community College to obtain Applied Science Degree as a Physical Therapist Assistant, quickly progressed to attend the University of Michigan Flint where she earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. While immersed in her studies she demonstrated her relentless work ethic by working as a Physical Therapist Assistant helping patients in the toughest neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan while she took a major step in her ambitious pursuit to become a Physician by applying to Medical School while working and continuing to study.
She was accepted to Touro University in Las Vegas, NV and graduated medical school with stellar scores in 2017. Then came the grueling and competitive “match” process for her residency of choice in the field of Neurology. She matched at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas, NV and began her difficult training in the very town she studied medical school given the reputation she earned as a tenacious, hard working and intelligent student. After completing her residency she took her passion for Neurology to the next level and pursued her next seemingly impossible feat. She took and passed the Board exam to become a Board Certified Neurologist and entered the match process for a fellowship in what she regarded as her ultimate dream of becoming a Neurocritical Care trained physician. She matched at the very competitive University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, FL known for its strong critical care capabilities and excellent medical training for Neurologists in Critical Care.
After this successful match, for 2 years while raising a young son in Miami, Sasha worked and trained grueling hours while absorbing everything she could about Neurocritical Care in the ICU to become a better doctor. Upon completion of the program with great reviews from her teachers, mentors and peers she moved back to Las Vegas and became an attending Neurohospitalist and Stroke Director at Spring Valley Hospital where she currently practices. While she manages a busy patient load at the hospital she also finds time to be an amazing wife and devoted mother to her now two young sons and a daughter. After successfully passing her certification exam in Neurocritical Care with United Council for Neurological Subspecialties, she is now Double Board Certified in Neurology and Neurocritical Care. She exemplifies the incredible strength of a human to achieve remarkable success against tough odds and challenges. Despite not having everything handed to her during her humble but supportive upbringing, she works hard with a generous heart to help her patients in need and those around her while accomplishing every goal she has set her mind to.
