Left to Right: Nate, Gabby, Angela, and Me participating in a Suture Clinic hosted by the Filipino Association for Health Careers (FAHC).
Assistant Director of Administration
Swedish Medical Center First Hill
I worked my way up to Assistant Director of Administration at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. This program was called COPE Health Scholars which was an internship program that allowed you to shift on the clinical floors within the hospital. After a while, there was a position opening up at Swedish Medical Center and I applied for the position because I wanted a position that was closer to the University of Washington and Swedish Medical Center was a well-established health system as well. I wanted to transfer to Swedish because it was the flagship site for the Health Scholar program in the state of Washington. The position here had the biggest site and had over 400 interns compared to only 200 at Providence.
This position was particularly important to my development because this was my first leadership position focused within a health care setting. It allowed me to understand the atmosphere of the clinical environment associated with the hospital. There is a hierarchy within the leadership team here at Swedish. There is the regular leadership team, and there are the Executive Team leadership team who oversee the operations of the regular leadership team. I have transitioned into being a leader among leaders. Being in this position has allowed me to take initiative and bring some of my own ideas in to fruition. Though this experience, I was able to learn first-hand about collaborating within a larger team and being a leader among leaders. Tasks and Accomplishments
Confidence: I think that me having to sell my ideas to gain approval to the team allowed me to be more confident in myself and to be outspoken in ideas or processes that I think can be improved upon. Before this experience, I had a mentality of going with the flow and I was afraid of speaking Collaboration: This was something that I have grown from as I have never worked with a team of 60+ people. There is a new dynamic of working with your team which affects a larger team in order to achieve a bigger goal. Managing the administrative team went from 4 at Providence to 13 at Swedish really made me adjust to the work environment and working consistently with a greater number of team members. Creating Change: Several processes were outdated, and I found solutions to them. But many people were too comfortable in adapting new concepts. I had to sort of sell the idea that this way would reduce time spent and allow us to track the information in a more efficient way. Personal Contributions: I thought that this position was important for me as it would further develop my growth as a leader and exposure to administration within a health care setting by being challenging myself in further developing my skills with patient interaction as well as medical staff directors. Others Perspectives: First coming into the program, I had bigger shoes to fill than I originally anticipated. The outgoing Assistant Director was well integrated into the program and was more involved in the 5 branches of the team. These branches consisted of Administration, Departments, Projects, Training/Enrollment, and Recruitment. So I had to sort of reflect and view the team perspective from Swedish and see how to introduce ideas that appealed to them. Problem Solving: Many people doubted my skills as I was only a second year in undergrad at the time. I had many ideas and processes from Providence that I wanted to bring over. A Clearance Entry Guide that I proposed to the Swedish team gain the attention of cooperate after several revisions. The form ended up cutting data entry and processing of health records in half compared to the previous method. Advocating for a Point of View: Here I was not only advocating for myself, but I was also advocating for my team which consisted of the Administrative Team. This was important because I would be a representative of my team and convey at the meeting what my team is experiencing. I was not always on the same page as my team and that is why I check in with them as much as possible to find out if there are any barriers that we need to break down. Inclusion: The Health Care industry needs to be both clinically adept and socially empathetic to serve their increasingly diverse communities. This is why being inclusive plays such an important role in health care treatment today as the patient populations are becoming so ever so diverse, the need for providers to reflect the patient populations is critical to the success of treatment. Throughout my time here at Swedish, I have always kept an inclusive policy and allow anyone to learn about admin and advocate for those who are unable to have a voice. |
For the first time in the history of the Administrative Branch at Swedish Medical Center there was all executive positions filled. Typically, there would only be an Assistant Director of Administration who oversees the administrative branch. Pictured here from left to right is Michelle Wasan (Director of Administration), Brandon San (Assistant Director of Administration) and Enoch Chung (Assistant Director of Alumni Administration). During our time here as executive team, we were able to develop several trackers and processes that would be utilize across the Health Scholar Hospitals across Washington, California, and Hawaii.
Being a Clinical Intern at Providence Regional Medical Center allowed me to learn the amount of people that it takes to treat a patient. Pictured here is the Paula, the Charge Nurse of the floor. She nominated me for the Exemplary Service Award due to my diligent work with diverse patient populations and meeting all their needs. This ranked the Medical Surgical Department the highest HCAHPS score in the hospital for that rotation.
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