<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy I'm joined by a special guest here from the Illinois area and Rutha please introduce yourself hi everyone I'm amutha kadali I'm a fellow at Carl hell doing my administrative Fellowship after completing my masters in healthcare administration at George Washington University excited to be here [Music] I've been meeting a lot of people from the Illinois the Midwest and it's great when they went to school in an area that I'm familiar with as well because I can make that connection you started down in Virginia that's where you said you were originally from but you started with a degree in cognitive science so I was honestly Premed for most of my life including undergrad when I was deciding my degree kind of wanted something a little Broad than the typical like biology or something like that but even cognitive science I don't know how applicable it is to my general life today when I was studying for the MCAT actually I kind of realized like maybe I do want to take a step back from the clinical life um I had done some volunteering at that point with a free clinic E I was on an EMT like an ambulance for a little bit that kind of just made me realize maybe that's not it for me um went to a career service person and they kind of said like maybe Administration is best for you where your interests are because I was like I love organizations and like planning and things like that and I still want to work in healthcare so that's when I learned about the administrative fellowship and kind of decided that was where my goal was at um so yeah I just finished the cognitive science degree that was about my senior year so I was planning on taking a gap year kind of getting into the world of maybe Clinic coordination Administrative Assistant type things but also my senior year was the pandemic in 2020 so at that point is when I decided to kind of take a research job where I was still working with a clinic administration at Johns Hopkins and I think that's where your next question is headed I do want to ask did you actually take the MCAT I actually did did you score well I did okay I did get like an interview or two from Med schools I ended up applying as well but while I was waiting to hear back is when I was really like I don't even think I want to go to med school and that's what ended up happening and I I think that's important to realize is that you know there's a lot of preds that switch to Administration yes and some of us like myself kind of wased out but a lot of people they really did do very well academically they just chose a different path yeah and I think it's so important for people to realize that if you choose a different path it's not a failure you're choosing something that fits you better I think that that's I was terrified of switching my path and having my friends say oh you know you're you're not smart enough for p school or something but in reality 10 years later you know the people who did really do what they were H you know what they really wanted to do are happy excellent and I think growing up like in the world of healthcare all I knew was Premed in the clinical side of things so you know for to take as long as it did for me to learn about the administrative side I'm glad I eventually found out about it but I'm glad that the world of social media and everything is kind of opening people up to the different job opportunities that are out there and then you did start at John's Hopkins I'm a big fan of them I took a few certificate courses through them love their their programs so what did you do there and and how did that further your transition yeah so at that point in time I was really interested in elderly care and so I was looking for projects that focused on patients of that demographic this project I was so lucky to find was about people with mild cognitive impairment who kind of needed a caregiver to help them get to their appointments and really pay attention to what they need moving on so our project was really trying to get people to understand just because you sign an advanced directive does not mean you're like headed toward you know dying it's just good planning and good practice and so I was working with local Clinic leadership we were working with 50 plus clinics in the Baltimore and DC area and all of their kind of Administrators and that's really what cemented my interest in administration is we were looking at work flows with them and their diet Partners usually we're a physician at each clinic and kind of understanding like okay where can we plug in an advanced care planning facilitator for us to help make this a reality for all of your patients that need it and so after I did that I was like okay wow like Administration it's definitely a possibility I really want to do this and be able to help like a lot of patients so you're able to see the impact of administration exactly and I was kind of in a very unique perspective from the research side of things but made sure to really network with the clinic Administration and kind of get an understanding of what they were up to day-to-day as well so I guess one of the questions I have on that is because I've actually experienced this advaned directive issue with my own health system what does this look like for the staff and the Clinic are you actually having someone in the clinic you said there's a facilitator who's able to explain it to the patients yeah so the facilitator themselves was usually a social worker who was specialized in end of life care and you had to have that conversation with not only patients but that caregiver who might have very different questions from just a patient perspective um so really trying we had already done the research part of it before I had joined the team so they have decided like yes this is a worthwhile kind of endeavor and we need to implement this this next phase was really getting it into all of those clinics to have a larger um data pool to kind of pull from and have a paper done on that so getting that embedded into all of those clinics was really my part of the job so kind of the project management aspect of that and that's awesome that's a great project because I knew that some of the health systems I've seen it's all they do is they put an epic pop up that's really annoying that says directive and you have to like click it and so that is really incredible that you're were able to kind of manage implementation of a program like that what led you to go to that mha program I know you said you were thinking of John's Hopkins you were maybe thinking of a few others how many did you apply to and and why did you end up going where you went yeah so I absolutely took ranking into account I have to say you know the probably the top 10 is where I was thinking about applying I did want to stay relatively close to home so the three I ended up applying to were VCU GW and Johns Hopkins GW I was able to commute from home so I will say that was probably the main factor but obviously ranking and the um third year of the fellowship really appealed to me having that be a requirement felt like it would really help me end up in that Fellowship position that I was really looking for as I mentioned like that's something that I known about since undergrad and knew that I really wanted to get that experience because I have you know I had no idea what goes on in a hospital until the mha and obviously the mha will kind of teach you what happens but seeing it in practice was really important to me I just felt like having that be a requirement would really motivate me to go ahead and get it done and also the resources it kind of takes to you know interview prep resume prep all of that was really helpful in the end so that's kind of what helped me pick GW it helps uh the University have that infrastructure set up to facilitate the fellowships whereas I know if you don't have that you're kind of on your own sometimes so exactly yeah and that's how John's Hopkins I did talk to quite a few people and it sounds like more people end up in the Consulting world from Johns Hopkins mha program and some people really want to do that but I knew that at that point I wanted to do the fellowship and I did speak to some alumni who had the same kind of path goals as I did and they said yes they were very much on their own after Hopkins to find that Fellowship I've heard from a lot of gwu graduates and it seems like most of them even though the tuition is steeper initially yeah than some of the other programs it seems like most of them are pretty satisfied with their outcomes from the school yeah I would think so I think it's really helpful for early careerist I only had one year of experience I know I just talked to someone a friend who was considering mha programs but she's been a nurse for like five years I was like okay maybe you don't need that third year requirement at GW also for that tuition where you're coming out making M like from making money and now suddenly having to pay might be a little rough for you so consider that as you choose schools but for early careerists I think it was super helpful and then during that program of course you also did the administrative internship and with interesting about that is from what it looks like you kind of went back into that retirement older age Services right so what led you to go to that internship and what was that like yeah so I was still at that point very much interested in elderly care as well and I still am but I think finding that Continuing Care retirement center experience was awesome they I mean it was through Leading Age which is one of those bigger organizations that a bunch of retirement centers across the country are kind of a part of and they really try to invest in that development of the youth so for me that program was awesome they paid for my housing that year I remember and I got paid on top of that so I really appreciated the opportunity because I know a lot of administrative internships are not paid so that was something that really stood out to me but then with the Continuing Care of retirement center experience itself it was so cool to see the kind of the Continuum of Care I will say the CCRC that I was at was pretty Swanky it had like patients from very high income I would say like they provide Ed dinners for me and like every week they would do at least one that included like lobster or shrimp or something but after besides that there was also the Assisted Living Center and the memory care unit and things like that where I got to really see how you know they think about Staffing and the kind of activities that they have to do and things like that just to you know make it feel like a home rather than just a place that they have to stay at because they can't stay at home like their actual homes anymore right and how did that experience impact you know what the fellowship process was like for you and what is the fellowship process like at gwu I know that at USC they have kind of a match process set up is it similar to where you were at so I would say GW is more like you kind of find the fellowships that you're interested in and apply I wouldn't say you're on your own completely because they do help you with kind of interview prep and stuff as I mentioned but you are still on your own to kind of find those fellowships and still go through nav cast like the centralized applic system and things like that to find it on your own so what was that like coming from that you know administrative internship you've gotten this experience with Elderly Care you know what were you looking for when it came to your fellowship and why did you choose Carl Health in the end yeah I will say from The Internship I felt like I maybe didn't get the experience that I was entirely looking for in terms of projects I was given more kind of shadowing passive projects were I probably looked at some Excel files and tried to you know sort it out there was one where I was able to look at Grants and kind of say like hey this is one that you should look at and things like that it was still a great experience to still understand how Elderly Care can look I think from that going into the fellowship I really leaned on my Gap year experience to be able to speak to my skills and what I've built on in grad school in terms of learning and everything like that and then choosing Carl health I think for me obviously I was looking into ending in Chicago my husband is up in Chicago getting his MBA at Chicago Booth and so that was kind of my goal But realize that all the big cities for fellowships are extremely competitive like I know my friend's at Northwestern right now and she said they got 300 plus applicants this year perhaps expanding my radius would be a good idea considering that I really only had like one year of experience coming into the mha um and I didn't really work during the program as well which is something that I may recommend but expanding out to Champagne Urbana of Illinois was really helpful because then I found Carl which is this growing organization they just acquired three hospitals about two hours away from their Flagship and it's been really cool to be a part of that kind of integration process and that's something that stood out to me when I was learning more about the organization as a whole um they are very different from Chicago I would say because they don't have the whole like City demographic but you know they have their own demographic where they still have their partnership with Chicago when they need it it just seemed like in Chicago a lot of hospitals are kind of fighting for the same patient Market in the city where Carl has a lot more room to breathe and that really appealed to me when I was looking for fellowships how many fellowships did you apply for overall I did pretty much all the ones on Chicago like in navc that I could find and then probably two or three more outside of that then there was one in New York which I I'm blanking on the name but it's in um Morristown New Jersey I did end up getting an onsite there so I was very torn between staying in New York closer to home or going out to Urban a champagne closer to my husband there were some random ones in like Florida that I was like maybe I want to try Florida for a year yeah and then what was that onsite like with Carl that really pushed your decision what was the interview like what were the executives like if you can just describe what that whole experience made you feel lead in that direction yeah I think Carl does a great job of really making you feel very welcome in terms of the onsite the day before they had kind of a casual dinner with the preceptors and all of the past fellows were there too which there's about like 10 of us that are still in the program or in the organization so everyone was at dinner it was a very nice way to kind of let our nerves like loosen up a little bit there were four candidates total that they brought on to the onsite so we got to know each other a little bit and it really helped kind of prepare for the day ahead of us um after the dinner I remember they took us to kind of relax and like get some ice cream and something and it was really nice and the day and before the interview they also took us on a tour of the area just of champagne in general took us around the university you see and just kind of a preview of like what life would be like the day of they took us on a tour of the hospital and then it was like four rounds of interviews with VPS across the system and then we had a lunch where the CEO of the whole system came which felt so special that he was able to kind of have lunch with us the COO the CEO of the health plan that's also integrated I forgot to mention that Carl health is integrated with a Health Plan called Health Alliance and that was also something that really stood out to me about Carl Health but so the CEO of the health plan was there our preceptors um was a great little catered lunch and we were trying to you know make conversation not be a Wallflower like remember all those tips that people tell you going into this while also just trying to get a bite so we don't like pass out by the end of the interviews that was a fun little challenge for us but right after lunch we had a panel interview where all four of the candidates were in the same room with the COO and the presidents of the five hospitals that Carl had at that point so that was such an experience I I am not a fan of panel interviews because I don't want people hearing my answers I don't want to hear other people's answers and feel like I can't you know repeat them or whatever so building on other people's answers and all of that was such an experience but overall I mean glad I did it got through it and then we had four more panel interviews that were each a half hour with more like VPS and directors across the system and I just think that the leaders were very well chosen because I feel like I've worked with all of them at least once since then and you know it really feels like they're involved in like choosing you but yeah it was a very busy day very packed and I still think about it sometimes like I'll go to the same conference rooms that those interviews were in and I'm like oh my gosh like ptsc but overall it was a very interesting experience and it was something that I'm to have come out for sure that is one of the more extensive onsites I've heard of a lot of them to be honest I've heard of it's only the SE Suite or it's only a few of the the VPS but it seems like you met a lot of people in the organization which I think is really important because then when you actually show up for the job you're not like oh I've only met two people here and it's kind of exactly yeah and then what was you know you got this acceptance I mean probably extremely exciting moment what was that process like when you started the first day is it rotation is it Project based you know what are they throwing you into right away or are they easing you into things what is that like yeah so it's a Project based internship uh or Fellowship the first two or three months or so they had some shadowing set up for us so we could kind of figure out which leaders we maybe wanted to work with or which areas of the hospital we were interested in they did like the very first day I remember the past fellows that were kind of transitioning us into it they stayed on for a week so that we had kind of that overlap which was really nice but for that first day they kind of sat us down and they were like okay here are all the projects we have that we weren't able to wrap up so now you guys get to do it I remember my co- fellow and I were so like I don't know which projects I want I don't know like what the capacity of work is like I don't I don't know what people expect from us it was very scary situation for the first couple of weeks I would say but once we got the hang of things it did feel like you know that now that the fellowship has been around for around 8 to nine years at Carl Health everyone knows what a fellow is capable of and what kind of work to assign us so that was very comforting to know and just understand as we continue our projects like you know we're allowed to make mistakes we allowed to ask questions and it was it was I wouldn't say it was the smoothest transition because the first two weeks it was kind of like drinking from a fire hose as they say but once we got this the hang of things it felt like we were ready to go so that's wonderful you know in the programs that have been around the longest I found are usually always the best it seems like once you get past that fiveyear Mark the program really Thrive and you want it to be rigorous and you want it to be really challenging because now you know 11 months out you're a well-rounded professional you're looking for your roles what are some projects that you've done that have shaped what you're looking to do in the future yeah that's a great question one of my favorite projects it was kind of weird but we open this new building a little south of us is kind of in a rural area so we had given it rural Health Clinic status is what we applied for and that's through CMS so you get kind of different perks different like tax exemptions things like that um what happened when we opened a new building for it though was that the address changed all of a sudden it wasn't as rural as we had applied for that status with originally so my job was kind of preparing for that imp impending decision from CMS so I was on this meeting once a month with people from epic billing like provider compensation marketing Communications like re revenue cycle all across the hospital preparing for this decision saying like if we do get rural Health Clinic status taken away we're going to have to switch to provider based billing which is a completely different ball game we're going to have to change a lot of the processes with schedulers and things like that going to have to let patients know that that's going to affect their billing process as well and so it was a weird three or four months of us trying to get this process in place but not necessarily put it in place because we still needed that decision to happen and all the while we're hoping that the decision doesn't actually take place so we're doing all this work for something that you know we are really crossing our fingers and hoping it won't but it was just so interesting to work with all of those different people of the moving Parts at one point we did have CMS kind of write us an informal letter that implied that it was going to get taken away so we had patient communication sent out and then a week later CMS actually gets back to us and they're like never mind so we had to take it back and so all of those moving pieces it was so much fun to kind of go through I'm really like happy that that was one of my first projects too because I got to see all those pieces and understand what they are and that project really got me interested in project management honestly that's something I hope to do eventually other projects that have been really interesting to me were I told my preceptor I want to do stuff with like data and Analysis or Finance I really liked my finance classes in my mha so that was something I express interest in and so I've worked a lot with one of our VPS of Finance for the region and he's thrown a lot of financial analyses at me said like hey the service line we're thinking about expanding it can you analyze the downstream Revenue that we get in terms of like how many patients they see how many do they actually end up going into the hospital or something like that and kind of analyzing that so now I am looking at like Revenue integrity and things like that for my future job as well so we'll see what ends up panning out I mean the climate right now financially is a little weird for Carl health because of the Whole Health Plan and everything you have a broad scope which I think is excellent for for your employability of course you know whether it's project management or or something in finance but I want to ask you know with your husband in the Chicago area your family back in the the East United States you know are you looking to to stay with Carl if possible or are you looking looking elsewhere yeah so another huge perk of the two kind of areas that I'm interested right now is that they can be pretty remote or hybrid so I would be definitely willing to kind of stay with Carl if a role in that capacity kind of works out out and I can you know maybe have to go to Carl like once a month or something that would be totally fine so they both my my preceptor and everyone who's helping me with the job search knows that that's kind of my situation at this point and they're doing their best to kind of help me out with that oh that's great AB so wonderful I I also want to ask are there any professional associations that you're a part of or any curriculars that you've done that you think have really benefited you that you could share with individuals like myself yeah that's a good question I probably don't do enough but I am part of AC um I unfortunately didn't go to the conference but there was an alumni event the Tuesday night of that week and I was able to go there and kind of connect with all of my the alumni that were in town for that as well um I'm on student advisory committee at GW so we actually have a meeting tonight for that looking forward to it um but otherwise I think just I've been networking a lot like since the fall just because I kind of knew that maybe I would potentially look at applying EXT externally to Carl and so just kind of networking seeing what's out there especially with alumni who are in Chicago that's been my biggest extracurricular activity what does that look like for you what does that networking look like for you yeah I would say my adviser at GW has helped me a lot he somehow keeps tabs on a lot of people that he's taught in the past so when every time I meet with him he comes up with a list of like five to 10 new people that he's like oh you should talk to this person they live in Chicago or like this person might have like a remote job for you or whatever he um has been really really helpful but other like outside of that too I scroll through Linkedin a lot and just find people who work at organizations that are actively hiring or do something that I'm generally interested in and just I will just message them and I will say I have a decent success rate probably like 75% of people get back to me at some point I've also networked with all of the past fellows at Carl a lot of them have left the organization too so just seeing what they're up to why did they leave a lot of it's usually like personal life things like oh I needed to be with my boyfriend or whatever which is totally understandable at this stage of our lives so just kind of seeing like how that transition went for them because that's something that I thought I was going to do as well but yeah still crossing my fingers that the internal transfer kind of works out absolutely so it's that you know keeping in touch with previous people from your alumni and then of course the the alumni of the fellowship program as well and then on that LinkedIn I'm a big LinkedIn I love LinkedIn my wife jokes about it all the time because I'm always on LinkedIn on my phone of course our business is based on LinkedIn to be yeah I'm still you know it's in the networking has reaped a lot of rewards for me and I'm sure you've been seeing that as well I just want to ask one last question if you had to give maybe a singular piece of advice on how people going into these Fellowship programs can be successful you've completed a lot of successful projects the executives want to keep you there you know is there anything specific you could tell me that I should do to make sure I have your level of success yeah I would say really think about having a variety of projects that's one thing even now I look back and I'm like maybe I could have done more of this particular type of project that I see my co- fellow doing a little more than I did I told my preceptor I was interested in data and finance and that's something he really took in stride and tried to find projects like that but you know sometimes you only learn so much from more projects that are the same kind so really thinking about like okay hey I have enough of these like can you give me something that's maybe piloting something or really working with schedu or more Frontline staff or something like that is something I wish I had done more of but yeah in general it's really up to the fellowship and what kind of projects there are out there but just make sure you're getting the experience that you are really hoping for also it flies by so much faster than you think like it's already April and I'm like I don't know if I can even get any more projects at this point it feels like I'm here just to kind of wrap up things that I've been working on so that I'm ready for the new fellows and I'm not bombarding them with a bunch of projects that I haven't finished so so seek variety and also realize how short it is and how fast time goes by yes excellent advice really appreciate you coming on I know we went a bit over time but I do really appreciate your time very much and we'll have to follow up on you with whatever your new role is we'll have to have you back on as you reach the executive level yourself in these coming years so I couldn't be more appreciative for you coming on thank you for having me</p>