The Satariano Family

A patient waiting for hand surgery looked up as the anesthesiologist came in. “I’m going to be giving you anesthesia today,” he said. She studied his face. “Nick?” she said. “You got a lot older since I saw you in the office.”

Dan Satariano, MD, laughed. “No, no,” he told her. “I’m his father.”

The mix-up is understandable. At Cleveland Clinic Akron General, more than one caregiver answers to “Dr. Satariano” in the operating room. Dan, an anesthesiologist, spent 36 years there before retiring in 2024. He still works a few shifts a month, which is how he sometimes ends up administering anesthesia to his son Nick’s patients.

Nick Satariano, MD, is a hand surgeon. Chris Satariano, CRNA, is a certified registered nurse anesthetist — their father’s specialty. Matt Satariano, MD, is a urology resident. All four Satariano men have worked at Akron General, and more often than you might expect, two or three of them end up in the operating room together.

Joanne — Dan’s wife, the boys’ mother — is familiar with the territory, too. She spent 42 years as an OR nurse with a different health system.

Despite this, the Satariano sons will tell you that their futures never felt preordained.

“I can’t remember a time when Mom and Dad ever sat us down and said, ‘This is what you have to do,’” Nick says.

What their parents said instead was: Find something you’re passionate about and make it your career.

All the same, there may have been — in Nick’s words — “a little bit of passive diffusion.” Both parents came home from the OR happy, and talked about it at the dinner table, every night, for years. The children absorbed a particular idea of what medicine was.

“When we grew up thinking about what it meant to go into medicine, we thought it meant surgery,” Nick says. “Then one day it’s like, ‘Wait — there are physicians who aren’t in the OR?’”

It’s not unusual for the Satarianos to run into one another at work. Chris has spent whole days as Matt’s nurse anesthetist — from early in the morning until late in the afternoon. They’ve taken 2 a.m. emergency calls together. Some days Dan, Chris and Matt are all in the same suite at once.

“To me, it just makes work so much fun,” Matt says. “I look forward to going to the hospital every day when it’s like that.”

Masked, the brothers get mistaken for each other constantly.

“People always do a double take,” Matt says. “They’ll ask, ‘Are you guys twins?’”

When they’re not at the hospital, you might find all of them gathered around the dinner table. Most Sundays they’ll come together — four generations, including three grandchildren under 4 and Dan’s 90-year-old mother. Joanne cooks, often a delicious pasta dish. Inevitably, the talk turns to aspects of work, which in this family means surgery. Some at the table have been known to point out that not everyone finds this appetizing.

“Sometimes I think about career milestones,” Nick says. “But nothing ever really means as much until I can bring it home to the family.”

The pull toward home shaped even the biggest decisions. Nick spent years training out of town, then chose to come back to the community that raised him. Weighing where to practice, he leaned on his father. Dan had worked with all kinds of partners over the years, and he had learned what mattered most. Look closely at who your partners will be, he told Nick, because those are the people you’ll rely on. They become your family, too.

Nick and Chris live two doors apart, their kids close in age, drifting between the two yards. Dan and Joanne are a neighborhood over. Matt is five minutes away. They’re always running into each other.

“It’s a true blessing,” Matt says, “being able to share our experiences as a family.”