President of Emergency Medicine at Envision Healthcare, CBOH Leadership Board Co-Chair, MBA 2014
What made you choose to go into healthcare?
Patients. When I was in college I enrolled in a nursing assistant program and volunteered at the local emergency department. My very first night I took care of my first patient—a patient with a gunshot wound. I was immediately struck by my ability to make a difference in this field. Throughout college, I continued to work in the ER. Those moments of personal connection with patients, fast-action decision-making, and breadth of work confirmed what I thought –I was meant for emergency medicine.
A few years later, I finished residency in emergency medicine in Philadelphia and took my first job as an ER Doc. Soon after, I recognized I wanted to work in the administrative space as well as take care of patients, because it was an opportunity to maximize my potential impact on patients. First, I led a few quality and operational projects and saw positive patient outcomes. I began to think, if I can improve the patient outcomes at one hospital and carry those best practices to other hospitals, I would have the ability to impact hundreds of patients’ lives every year. As I began to ‘scale’ the idea in my head, I recognized if done right, I could affect thousands- read the full article here.
