I’m a native New Yorker born to South Indian parents who immigrated to the US in 1975. For the first few decades of my life, I followed a fairly conventional path. That was until I realize how unconventional I really am.
On December 1, 2017, I quit my job to travel the world for a year. It wasn’t something I had planned for a long time. In fact, I had only really decided a few months prior. It was an opportunity to take a break, think, grow and redirect my path towards my greater purpose.
I was unintentionally introduced to medicine very early in life. At the age of 2, I was diagnosed with vesico-ureteral reflux, a condition that affects 0.45% to 1.8% of children. It results from urine, which normally flows through the ureters from the kidneys to the bladder, backing up into the kidneys and causing infection. I had a microscopic shortening in one of the valves in my ureter which is what caused the reflux. My pediatric urologist at the time felt it would self-resolve over time and recommended conservative therapy with antibiotics. During the course of the next 12 years, I would spend much of my life hospitalized for kidney infections, or worse, bacteremia. I spent many birthdays and holidays in the hospital, typically for weeks at a time. My only comfort was that my mom was a nurse. Finally, at age fourteen, I underwent a bilateral ureteral re-implantation. I haven’t had another infection since.
When I was in college, I knew I wanted to work in medicine but was unsure of my path. Medical school did not resonate with me. I learned of the combined bachelor’s/physician assistant program from my roommate who was enrolled. I quickly decided it was a good fit for me. I graduated PA school and started working full time as an orthopedic PA and a trauma surgery PA per diem. I loved it.
About two years in, I started to get involved in process improvements within the service and helped with the implementation of a computerized order entry system. It was then that I realized I needed to do more. I enjoyed taking care of patients, working with the residents and nurses and the diversity of my job. What I realized only years later was that I had a passion for improvement. And there was potential everywhere. That passion stayed with me for decades.
I applied for an MBA program in health care administration and got in. I worked full time and went to school part time, two nights per week for three years. My boss, who was (and still is) the Chairman of Orthopedics, was incredibly supportive. He made sure the residents scrubbed me out of the OR to get to every class on time. The residents never complained. We were friends and colleagues. I still maintain a relationship with many of them today.
At the end of my second year of graduate school, sitting in the OR lounge one day between cases, my boss told me I reminded him of the Vice President for Surgical Services at the hospital. He offered to connect me with her. She started as an operating room nurse and worked her way up to an executive. I accepted his offer. She became my mentor. She saw something in me before I did. She was humble and thoughtful in her approach to leadership. For the next year, I spent one day every other week with her – attending meetings and one-on-one learning sessions. This changed the course of my career.
My graduation was fast approaching and I started to think about what I wanted to do next. There weren’t a lot of options outside of the conventional administrative jobs. Departmental administrator was the most obvious one but I lacked experience and did not connect with the role. In one of my last meetings with my mentor, she surprised me with a job offer. The job was to manage the operating room at the main campus – at the time a 21-suite operating room. Having no idea what I was getting myself into, I graciously accepted. Operating rooms are traditionally run by nurses and nurse leaders. My mentor was not a conventional leader. In my opinion, it’s always been one of her best qualities. Before I started, the nurses had a petition against me. The union was agitated that I was not a nurse. My boss, the father figure that he is, warned me that I didn’t have to take the position. They would eat me alive.
I was 28 years old and now responsible for the operations of twenty-one operating rooms and one hundred and fifty union employees. I put my blood, sweat and tears into that job for three years. I earned the respect of my nurse leader colleagues and many of the nurses. I built relationships with the surgeons and anesthesiologists. I grew another layer of epidermis in that role. The stakes were high every day and the emotions even higher. It was in that role that I learned the critical skills of conflict management, employee engagement, performance management and the importance of agility. It was a management 101 crash course. It took me years to realized what my mentor had done.
I left that position to become the administrator for education, faculty and academic affairs at a medical school in the city. When I heard the job summary from the HR recruiter, I recall thinking to myself, “I have no idea what that means…but I can do it.” Five and a half years later, I told this story at my farewell in the hope of inspiring others to trust in their abilities and seize opportunities as they come.
I had a brand-new segment of healthcare to learn and I immersed myself in learning. For the next five and a half years, I put that passion for improvement to work across finance, medical education, research and faculty affairs. The deans, managers and staff were passionate, driven people. There’s something uniquely special about people who make careers in education. My boss was an incredible teacher. A quiet leader. I cannot recall a time that he did not empower and support me. We were partners. I thrived in that environment. I was working among thought leaders. It was from that remarkable team that I was introduced to innovation – both cognitive and technological. These were largely people who saw possibilities rather than challenges, a rarity in health care. After a year and a half, I was promoted to Vice President of Faculty and Academic Affairs. I continue to work on improvements.
On a quiet summer day in 2013, I was working in my office in the city when I received an unexpected call. It was my mentor from the first job. She asked if I was interested in talking. “I’m always interested in talking”, I responded. Six months later, I started in my new role as Vice President and Executive Director for one of the hospitals of the health system at which I started my career. Since the time I had left, a three-hospital medical center grew to a seven-hospital system and they were in need of new leaders.
“Do you really think I can run a hospital?”, I asked my mentor at one of our recruitment dinners (that I didn’t realize was a recruitment dinner). “Yes, I do.”, she replied. And that was that. I started in January of 2014.
When I started to tell my friends and colleagues in 2017 about my decision to quit and travel the world, I expected some to say I was crazy. To give up a position like the one I had was just plain nuts. Though, no part of me really believed that. But not one person did. In fact, to my surprise, almost everyone I told had one of two responses: 1) “Can I come with you?” and 2) “That’s amazing! I wish I could do that.” I was fascinated. Perhaps I was not such an outlier after all…
I need to do more. I need to create change on a larger scale with less boundaries. Healthcare providers and systems have walls and ceilings (literally and figuratively). And it’s no fault of theirs. It’s the environment they inherited. I want to work outside of the walls and ceilings to drive improvement.
For most of us, it takes a village to develop our path. And that path should be iterative and dynamic. We’re at an inflection point in healthcare that will determine the next few decades of impact. We all go into this industry for a reason. And, we all have a story to tell.
