<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy and here with me an administrative fellow from MUSC Health uh Bella please introduce yourself hi everyone uh my name is Bella riddle I am currently an administrative fellow at Medical University of South Carolina um originally from West Columbia South Carolina so I am born and raised here um so happy to be with you today Cole and talk a little bit more about my path in health administration [Music] happy to be with you as well this evening thank you so much for uh sharing some of your time with us to you know share from your experiences you have a lot of different experiences over a pretty short period of time you've been able to accomplish a lot of different things uh the first thing I noticed was at at Warford is that how it's pronounced wford actually wford I heard you say it and then I couldn't replicate it so wford you were pretty involved there um you know you were a subcommittee chair and then a chair and then a vice chair it's so you did a lot of different things has it always been important to you to be involved yeah no it always has been um and I very much describe myself as an extrovert I've always enjoyed being around people meeting different people and so I've always been very involved in sports and clubs and so that kind of continued on as I went to wford and even grad school um I love being involved with the community that I'm in I love knowing the people that I'm working with um in class outside of class in work um so yeah I would say I've always kind of been involved um for the start and do you think that that level of involvement is one of the reasons why you've been so successful um I I think so and I I don't even know if it's just like that level of involvement I think it's just it been able to be exposed to so many different people and things um I think the biggest part about being is as successful as you possibly can is just forming relationships with people um and just getting to know them you never know you know when someone that you were a chair with back at wford might be able to you know help you out later on in life and so I think just focusing in on those relationships and spending time really getting to know people um and so I think that certainly comes with being involved but just getting exposed to different things in different areas um I think is certainly attributed to that yeah absolutely absolutely and so you know you double majored at wford you were considering Medical School potentially law school and then you settled on healthcare administration yeah why did you apply to MUSC why did you choose to go there and what was it about health care administration that kind of Drew you uh to that yeah um so I think with me I found kind of my passion for healthcare a very early age um when I was younger my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer um and so I and I grew up in a single parent household so me and my siblings were always very involved with her visits to the doctor's office to the hospital so we saw a lot of that kind of from the patient um side and you know I remember just kind of constantly being surrounded by several types of healthcare workers whether those were nurses or doctors administrators even the ladies in the gift shop and I just remember I was always such in awe of how they all were kind of connected through their passion of serving others and taking care of others and that being an oldest child myself was something I very much saw it myself in a young age and so I always knew I wanted to be in healthcare it was just a matter of which area of healthare best suited me and so originally I thought maybe that was medical school and then I was pivoting to healthc care law and then um I kind of stumbled upon Health Administration just through internships and so um I I decided to go out on whim I applied to musc's mha program it was in my home state um it's a very good program and so the more that I learned about it and the more people I spoke to that were in health administration it was like all the puzzle pieces finally started coming together and I was like okay I found you know I'm passionate about Healthcare but where do my strengths align with Healthcare and I finally was able to find that and so I applied to muc it's um in my home state it's a a great program and and I've been involved with it ever since congratulations on that uh kind of trajectory change that worked out so well for you you do have a lot of different internships and experiences I want to ask what do you think's been one of the keys in getting them you know I'm looking through the resume and you know we have uh at paletto right you were an administrative intern then at nefron you were in the regulatory Department then MUSC the children's quality and safety and and you know you've been a legal assistant so you know sometimes people say that they have a hard time finding internships what have you done that has helped you gain that that edge um I I think in terms of my internships that I did at MUSC they were super great at plugging Us in um so I was very lucky to kind of have those resources just right there and available at an academic Medical Center that I was able to kind of pull on um but even in college you know I was I I worked all throughout College as well as applied to different internships and so I think that just kind of goes back to being involved and as you meet people you you hear about different opportunities and just I I think the biggest thing is just putting yourself out there even when you might feel a little nervous about it I think um you know the worst thing they could ever say is no and so I think I've always had that mentality of you know I'm going to try and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out um I also think like you know clearly my path has has changed a good bit and I never just always saw like an opportunity for what it might give me I just went in and tried to take it for what it was and learn whatever I could in that moment and even if I couldn't see how that was going to fit into my path at that moment I think it always kind of ended up tying up nicely at the end and I'm like okay now now I can see how it's kind of fitting better into to my long-term trajectory um so I think just you know being involved um going back to that and just you know relying on your resources and reaching out to those people and then also if you're applying for health administration programs looking at programs that do have a lot of opportunities to get involved because I think you know um I had three or four internships at my time at MUSC and and they just did a really great job of of plugging Us in there and I learned so much in my master's program um so I would say those are probably the big things and because yeah you you had quite a few right you had the children's quality and safety and then you were also a teaching assistant and then you were in human resources then you rology and that's before even starting the fellowship what do you think I guess well actually one of the questions specifically um in the Radiology business operations role in in your LinkedIn um description of it you said that you did a bit with financial management how did your role were you back at um when you're the chair of activities council did that rule prepare you at all because you did manage a budget back back then yeah you were you like like surprised years later like wow I actually know a little bit about what I'm doing um I think maybe a little bit um I it was a really unique experience I was a junior in college and able to manage a budget of roughly $100,000 and so being a junior in college that was a lot to to manage and so I think developing that skill set early on certainly probably set me up better to to be in a better situation when I got to Radiology but honestly um I I learned so much from from one of my mentors there she was really strong and and finance and I would I would be lying if I said I went in there and completely was comfortable and knew everything I think you know specifically with Healthcare managing finances looks completely different than anywhere else um it's just super complex and you're constantly learning and asking questions so I I think I wish I was probably better prepared than I was for it but you know I think those skills of just learning to to kind of manage a budget certain tied in at certain points for sure so managing a budget is useful but it's so complex that don't feel bad you have some with previous experience if you don't get it right away because it's it's complicated so that's excellent um and then after that uh towards the actually I want to ask how long was your uh is your fellowship so my fellowship is a one-year program it's a one year and so what did the application process look like um did you apply in the last few months of your mha program or is it one that you applied to after mha program so I applied kind of so my mha program was two years and I would say I kind of started applying for fellowships at the first semester of my second year um so it was like around fall time um specifically for me and I think it was different for some of my other friends in in the health administration world but I applied to maybe like roughly 10 fellowships I knew that Fellowship was the path for me um and so I went through the full Fellowship process I applied to several interviewed for several um and it came down to where I'm at now in one other organization um and so it it was definitely a very hard and long process I think um anyone that puts thems through the fellowship process of just interviewing and applying comes out stronger on the other end um but I feel like I learned so much about myself and interview skills throughout that process process um even if I was going back and didn't think I wanted to do a fellowship I still would have recommended to myself to go through that process because you learn so much um so kind of applied I found out I got it in November and then I didn't start my fellowship until about June so I finished out the rest of my program continued interning and trying to learn and then transitioned to Fellowship in June and so why did you I'm assuming you probably received multiple interviews maybe even multiple offers why did you go with mus yeah um so muc like like I said I'm from South Carolina and South Carolina is my home state and it's a very special state in the sense of a lot of healthc care here is rural health care and so I grew up around that and I've always been very passionate about serving the community that I've grown up in um and so just quite frankly like MUSC was home for me and they were already teaching me so much and so um it was really meaningful for me to be able to go on and and continue learning from mus and continue being able to serve the state um that I grew up in and MUSC is is now kind of expanded throughout almost all of the state of South Carolina and so I think it's just really special to be able to be involved with the community that I grew up in and giving back to the people that raised me definitely um with that fellowship at the same institution that you were at for your internships what new challenges and uh you know new lessons have you learned has it been really kind of level up from what you were doing in your internship yes it was and honestly like coming from doing so many internships in the organization and transitioning to Fellowship by going into it I was like I'm not sure if this is going to be completely different and day one it was so different and I learned so much and and just those first couple weeks and I think I had learned in my entire gr program it was insane and um I think the biggest the most unique part of a fellowship is you're getting to be a part of those really big conversations with those large big leaders that you might not be exposed to until much later in your career until you're maybe in that seat on your own and so I think that it's really special to be able to come out of a a graduate program and be involved in those conversations and hear how those leaders think um because it's it is completely different and unless you kind of learn that way of thinking um like I said you're not going to be exposed until much later in your career so I think it's very unique to be kind of trained on that so early on um so that way when you go out of your fellowship you know and you're presenting to these leadership teams and you're trying to get things ped you know what their questions are going to be you know what their thought processes are because you were involved with those conversations so early in your career um so I think they're definitely very high level conversations and and lots of things happening um but I think it just exposed me to so much and I've been able to grow so much in Fellowship from it what is the fellowship format is it of the projectas is it rotations what does it look like um so it's a little bit of both um our I think our first 15 weeks or so we do rotations and then after that you really get really deep into your project work um my and then we're a large cohort um and so everyone has kind of their own preceptor so I have a preceptor that I report up to um and he and he's wonderful he he gave me the advice of of I have my 15 required you know rotations but to go out and do other areas that might not be required and so I really spent you know a good portion of the beginning part of my fellowship just rotating and meeting different people and learning from different teams and really starting to understand you know how does a hospital actually function like to its core what are those things that are needed um so I was able to really kind of just form a really strong Foundation just from those rotations and then the second half of my fellowship we've kind of designed it of being more plugged in with that project work of where I can take that foundation and start to contribute to the organization so it's been great I've learned a lot what are some of the favorite contributions that you've made through your projects if you have to name one or two o that's a hard one um I think a really cool one that I was able to do and I think it's probably my favorite because I'm really being able to see it from the start to the end is um I I at the beginning of Fellowship volunteered to help out right a grant which I knew was going to be brutal I knew it was going to be long but I volunteered and so come to find out we found out I think you know about a month and a half ago that we were awarded a $1.8 million Grant um to go into this freestanding Ed Clinic space and kind of build out um times share Clinic space within that to offer uh new tele Health Services to an underserved rural community um and so it was cool to be able to get that Grant but now I'm actually able to kind of help with the project management of okay now we we've got the the funds to secure this but now we need everything else and so we're going through the design and the bid process and we're going to even be able to take it all the way to operationalizing that and so I think that's probably been my favorite just getting to see it from from start to finish congratulations on securing that grant that is incredible work thankk you do you have any tips for people who are just entering their Fellowship of things that they can do to try to be as successful as as you've been through it um I would say just be very curious um and really take this opportunity to meet everyone you can um you know I I think muc specifically is filled with so many wonderful smart leaders and all of them have just completely different offerings and different advice to give you and so spending time getting to know them and just hearing their advice I think will take you a long way and then also just being curious and not afraid to you know ask questions when you don't understand I think the point of a fellowship is you're not going to know everything no one's going to know everything coming out of grad school so just being comfortable enough to you know do your due diligence and research and try to understand what you can but if there are times that you're not understanding you know don't be afraid to to ask why and and you're going to learn so much more from that very very good advice thank you for sharing that as well yeah of course wow um so how are you preparing for for the end of your fellowship coming up soon are you planning on staying at MUSC what what does that look like for you yeah um definitely crazy that it's coming up I can't believe it's going to be a year in June and definitely very sad to kind of see this chapter closing but definitely excited for the next um I think for me specifically in my next role I'm trying to get more involved in operations in a hospital I really want to develop that strong Foundation um and so right now I'm ly looking at And discussing different opportunities to to take a position um in an operations area uh still figuring that out um but you know once June comes along my plan is to transition from fellowship into a full-time role excellent that is great that they're going to be keeping you there I feel like uh I think it's always nice when organizations do try to reach out to Fells and and have them stay and I think that reflects really highly on the organization yeah definitely oh actually one last question about that too are you the only fellow or did you have co-fellows no I have co-fellows and something unique about MUSC is they have the largest um fellow cohort in the nation um so they have the largest fellowship program um and so I have I think upwards of of 10 other co-fellows but MC owns and operates I think it's around 11 hospitals um and so we're all kind of spread out in our own areas doing our own things um but yeah it's great I love having co-fellows and having that built-in cohort um always bouncing ideas off of each other and learning from each other so it's a great environment we're gonna have to invite all of them on to share all of their I know they would love to do that yeah definitely yeah so that's excellent well good for you and congratulations on on how everything's gone for you once again thank you thank you for coming on and sharing this with us yeah thanks so much for having me of course</p>