The Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Administrative Fellowship: Collin Gibson

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy I'm joined by a special guest who's been across the country from North Carolina to Illinois and back or from Illinois North Carolina and back rather Colin Colin please introduce yourself hi Cole thanks so much for having me uh hello everyone my name is Colin Gibson I'm currently serving in a consultant role with Northwestern Medicine in their value based care team I'm a former Winston uh sorry Wake Forest Baptist uh Advocate Health fellow great to be here with you [Music] Cole it's great to have you on so I want to ask first where did you where were you born and where did you live because I noticed you went to uh Alabama there for undergrad and then Illinois for your Masters back to Charlotte in the South again and then back to Illinois where you work now so how did you come to to start your career at Alabama that's a great question I had bounced around quite a bit my life um I'm actually from Aurora Illinois it's a Southwest suburb of Chicago I was probably 45 minutes to an hour outside the city um but you're totally right went to high school there uh then did my undergrad at the University of Alabama for four years uh Roll Tide by the way um uh came back to Chicago and got my masters at uh University of Illinois Chicago um and then yeah took a took a chance and did my fellowship in North Carolina which I had never been before um moved out to Winston Salem North Carolina uh where Wake Forest Baptist is and loved it out there as well but yeah it's it's been a journey and now I'm back in Chicago so back home it's great to have such a a breath of of kind of geographical change it definitely helps you experience different things in in broaden your horizons what um was the the reason for getting an mha how did you come across that degree Choice yeah I think um my trajectory reflects a lot of the people who choose to do mhas and fellowships I was a biology major Premed student at the University of Alabama um I went through the recruiting and application process to medical schools um ended up not being the route for me but totally kept that passion for healthcare knew I wanted to make a make my own impact and contribution to the healthcare industry um so when you know medical school didn't end up being the route for me I kind of had to Pivot and see what else was out there um and uh that's how I kind of landed on the mha degree um totally a space that I knew nothing about I didn't even realize what opportunities were available uh in health administration um but it's worked out I couldn't be happier in my choice how did you know that it was for you right was it during your mha program during your internship your fellowship where did you really realize like this is definitely something that I enjoy doing yeah another great question um I think my historical view on Healthcare was that the only way to make an impact on patients lives or the healthc care industry was being at the bedside as a provider making you know direct patient to provider contact um but when I found when I got into my mha or I started doing a little bit more research on Administration whether that be through my own valtion or my awesome awesome classes and courses at UIC during my mha program I'd learned of how much of the healthcare industry is driven by the larger forces at play that allow providers to be uh to practice at the top of their license and impact the patients as much as they can so I realize there's a whole world and a whole industry of professionals that are supporting that direct patient care um that wouldn't happen uh without that cohort of Administrators U making a difference EX so yeah good props to the the UIC program there totally I could not be uh more satisfied with my time there I just learned so much really set me up for Success excellent and and then during your time there right you were a business development administrative intern for a while with Advocate Aurora what was that like and how did you get that internship yeah another uh reason that I came back to Chicago and kind of landed on UIC as the place where I wanted to get my mha was I knew that Chicago just being a native here was a healthc care Hub I mean we have um some World cast class care delivery here um you know large amount of of major health care providers in hospitals that are here um so I knew that this is where Healthcare happens in Chicago so that's why I wanted to come back here um my parents are actually both UIC alumni so I know that there's you know some there's a lot of options in Chicago but um UIC had a special place in my heart in my in my family's Legacy so that's why I ended up choosing UIC and it was a great decision um to to return to your question that's a roundabout way to saying that UIC was is super super supportive and helpful in landing in connecting students um with either alumni of the program or just industry leaders uh to do um what we call a preceptorship I think that's the word we used rather than internship um so UIC connects a student with a leader um in in a various aspect of administration and allows that student to learn kind of the ins and outs uh of of that uh poition I guess um and so I landed with an amazing Mentor Oscar Zan bro who was a Director of Business Development for legacy Advocate Aurora Health um and kind of my home base was Illinois Masonic Hospital uh which is in the lake view neighborhood so kind of on the north side of Chicago um such an amazing person but also just gave me an amazing preceptorship experience um he uh is very focused on De Andi efforts at Advocate Aurora so a lot of my business development opportunities were um de and I facing um meaning that a lot of the work I did was with local FC's federally qualified health centers in the area and connecting patients from those fqhcs who may be uninsured or underinsured to care Advocate Aurora Health um and kind of my I guess um my big project that I had completed while I was uh at Advocate Aurora Health was um surrounding breast cancer and connecting those patients to breast cancer so I was paired with a physician champion who was a breast surgeon Dr Celeste Cruz uh another amazing Mentor in person uh that I've come across in my uh journey and she would go out into these fqhcs and give a presentation on the importance of breast scening and breast Health um to the patient population or patient panel at the fq HMC and we would allow patients who attended those seminars to um you know get into the pipeline at Advocate Aurora uh in Illinois Masonic and allow them to get uh whether it be an ultrasound or mography or things of that nature um and then based on how that goes they can continue care with that W excellent breadth of experience so early on too right before even getting uh into your fellowship or you know graduating from your mha program you making these big strides and I like that concept of a preceptorship as well how you're you know you're really learning directly from a leader that's awesome um what did your parents go to UIC for uh yes so my mom is an early education teacher so she's in elementary schools um she's been a reading instructor for a long time so helping kids at uh maybe reading at a lower level or need some extra help um and getting them caught up um and my dad was you know boring accy major he's a guy uh and he'll tell you that so uh yeah he he's in accounting that's great so different definitely from where totally different I see some similarities that you know working with people the the service and then also that Finance combination of where you're at now you know Cole that's so interesting I've never thought about that but now I'm going to bring that back to my parents and and I'm I'm sure they're going to be happy to hear that oh yeah no absolutely I love uh asking people what their parents did because it tells you know I think a great story of you know where the the person is at now um so yeah I appreciate you sharing that what or were there any challenges I guess that you had to overcome during internship that your your preceptors or your mentors helped you with yes I think it's very uh Choose Your Own Adventure I think um much like a fellowship is my preceptorship was you're going to get out of this what you're going to put in um it wasn't a whole lot of uh rigorous scheduling or hours that were you know surrounded the preceptorship um you know our Capstone presentation where kind of like how you were monitoring your work in the preceptorship but it was it was very much as much as you want out of this this is what you're going to get so um that was um a difficult thing to navigate I think especially as coming from like a full-time student um you know I had I was working um a patient access you know front desk job at a hospital in Bowling Brook my first year in my mha and then that second year I went into my preceptorship um so it was definitely a change of pace um and I think navigating that um maybe unstructured environment um was a little bit challenging but again I can't get a give enough uh credit to my preceptor Oscar he was just so amazing um involved Me Maybe in meetings that didn't really relate to My Capstone project or things that I was directly involved in but just allowed me to be involved and listen and learn learn of um things that he was working on and things across the system that he he thought may be beneficial for me to learn um was really great so I would say it it it set me up well for my fellowship and in navigating a space where it's really self-driven um was a great skill to to develop early excellent yeah and good advice for other people who are being mentors on how to try to include people in things that they might not always think applies directly to what they're doing that's really good tip uh so the fellowship right it was pretty soon after you finished the internship that you transferred into that Fellowship totally uh I think I graduated uh from my mha and finished up my preceptorship in early May and by May 20th I was moved into my apartment in Winston Salem in North Carolina so um you're right totally a quick turnaround and and um yeah took some adjusting but we got there because a lot of times it's like a bit of a process you know some a lot of people I'm finding take a gap year after their mha or it's definitely a bit longer than 20 days right so just tell us how that all came about totally um so I guess where my fellowship Journey began was I was totally ignorant to the fellowship process that that was even an option coming out of the mha and another thing I have to give credit to my mha program at UIC for is uh developing that pathway for students um they were the first ones to get the ball rolling and students thinking about next steps after graduation and presenting the fellowship as an option um we having a great Alumni network that gives back to the program comes back and talks um a great history of former fellows that have come out of the program um and after that first you know webinar with different alumni talking about fellowships I was hooked I decided that that was the route for me um for a couple reasons I think yeah yeah specifically in my program we had a lot of U maybe industry experienced um students that were coming back to you know further their education and get their mha um that was not my experience I went right from my undergrad right to my mha program and so as I'm looking around the room I'm like wow I do not have the Bevy resume of experience that a lot of my my fellow students do and so what are the options for me well the fellowship is a great way to develop further develop after you come out of an mha program with little experience so I think the combination of those two things uh really allowed me to make a relatively easy decision that the fellowship was the correct choice for me that's uh yeah I I've I've been there myself in a lot of situations and I have heard that that's a very similar thing you know it's so hard to come out of even undergrad without experience to get a job right these jobs are asking for two years of experience at an entry level right I'm sure you've seen that and so the fellowship is such a good path um and also it just exposes you to so many areas how and why did we you know did you did you choose the um the atrium wak Force you know Baptist Fellowship which is now part of advocate how did you choose that and you know because it's similar it's interesting you were in the internship with Advocate Aurora and then during that time while you were an intern there right is when they really started formalizing that merger yeah you're totally correct um I think it was the fall of while I was in my preceptorship with Advocate Aurora is that they announced the the merger between Atrium and Advocate Aurora um so just to I know we're throwing a lot of names in this podcast Cole so I just wanted to level set um so my preceptorship with was Legacy Advocate Aurora Health um which is now kind of the Midwest segment of larger Advocate Health so it includes Aurora Health who is in the Wis Market Advocate Health who's kind of the was the you know Legacy Chicago market and then Atrium Health who's now the southeast um who merged with the Midwest so yes back to your question um here I am I'm Business Development intern at Advocate Aurora and I'm getting ready to think about applying I'm gathering my materials getting ready for application season and this big merger announced and as I'm you know identifying my lists um for fellowships to apply to um I threw my hat in the ring for Wake Forest Baptist uh for a couple reasons one I think I wanted to change a scenery I wanted to do somewhere outside of Chicago um develop my skills in in a new location um two it gets really cold here in Chicago and I think I thought I could use a winter off of the negative negative degrees here in Chicago um and three you know I I I feel passionately about academic medical centers and I want to I knew I wanted to develop a career path in the academic medicine center um and so out of the you know Atrium sites that were in the Southeast um that's how I kind of landed that Wake Forest was the place that I wanted to be um I hope that answered your question I think I kind of got sidetracked there and so you were in Chicago you you'd experienced Alabama of course uh the weather there but you're in Chicago again for the you know for two or three years and then you go down to Winston Salem what was Winston Salem like comparatively I've been to Winston Salem a bunch of course the audience goes I lived in Charlotte for a while so how did but I've never been to Chicago right so how does it compare to to what you experienced in Wiston Salem great question um it's a it's it's very different you know Chicago is a huge city um and Winston Salem is not uh but what Winston Salem does you know does not have in maybe uh size it makes up foreign character very much so I loved loved love my time in Winston uh I consider myself a city person but I had no qualms about living in Winston Salem so Wake Forest University is there so it is part I mean a percentage college town you know what I mean so there is the demographic of college students that are at wake um but it's also one of the most diverse places I've ever lived um the weather's amazing I think the unique part about living in Winston is it's centrally located in North Carolina and so you can kind of get whatever you want out of Winston Salem uh I became a bit of an Outdoorsman uh my co- fellow Drew trait um is a very um seasoned Outdoorsman so with research hikes um and just different outdoor activities for us and and we had a blast doing that um so you have the mountains right there tons of beautiful hikes um we did uh you know the Blue Ridge tra is there so we did the Blue Ridge Trail the Blue Ridge Parkway is just beautiful in the fall with the color changes um so you got the mountains then you have Charlotte only 50 minutes away so if you want to go do City Life you want to have a weekend in the city um going out trying restaurants doing that that's very close uh and then you drive east and you can get to the beach in an hour an hour and a half so it's a it's a really unique place where you can kind of get um whatever you're into out of um I will say that Winston itself uh I live downtown Winston it's a city in itself I mean there's amazing uh bars and restaurants um tons of gyms it's a very vibrant night life there um there was you know uh farmers markets and street festivals during the summer um and so yeah I mean you couldn't ask for a better place to to live appreciate you sharing that especially for a lot of our our audience who's coming from a big City sometimes they worry is this going to be too small for me you know I don't want it to be boring but North Carolina even their smaller cities they have a lot that they like to do there they like to do the food truck rodeos the farmers markets you know they really like to do this stuff so I appreciate you sharing that uh getting into the actual Fellowship you know our audience knows it's a it's a Project based of course it's 12 months are there any parts of the fellowship that you really enjoyed or any projects that you did that really stuck out in your mind yeah I think um what really makes uh specifically wake for is Baptist Fellowship uh special and why I'm so glad I did my fellowship there is is really in those first six weeks kind of can make or break your fellowship in my opinion so I really love how how we set up our fellowship or how leadership um and our our preceptor Dr Wheatley there uh sets it up so basically she has an or chart that she prints out and gives to the fellows um and you walk in the door with pre-scheduled meetings with a lot of the people on that order chart um so that's going to be your service line VPS um your directors uh people from across the organization that spans all the Departments and you're going to walk in the door and you're already going to have time on those people's calendars to introduce yourself get to know them get to know what they do what their priorities are what projects they're working on um and so you already have a great view of the system and the leaders in the system in the first couple weeks um and I think that's really important not only to establish relationships of people but just to find out what what people are working on what does your work look like because I know I graduated my mha and I I said I don't know what you know a large system like Advocate heal what the priorities are how projects work what the work is um so that was really important and then following those kind of initial introductory hourlong meetings these leaders take the time to do with the fellows um you can kind of align yourself to what you're interested what what pops out to you um and you know so for someone like me I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do when I walked in the door and so that was super helpful to kind of identify who I wanted to follow up with and what I wanted to like kind of start to get my get my feet wet in projects and where that was going to be so I think that was very unique and and some not something that doesn't exist in every Fellowship thank you so much for for sharing those details too because every fellowship at Advocates you know huge series of fellowships now is different so I I appreciate that one of the things I noticed in your resume that is different from from some of the other fellows is you chose to return to nor uh to Chicago and go to Northwestern you did not go to to ad one of Advocates areas post Fellowship can you share some insights on how that uh how you went in that direction absolutely um so for me that was just a personal choice I uh I loved every second of being in Winston I loved my co-fellows the leadership there was amazing um and I think if I could pick up um Wake Forest Baptist Health and put it in Chicago I I would have loved to spend my career there I mean I just love the people that I interacted with I can't say enough good things about the people there um I just uh wanted to come home I think that's the the thing that it came down to um my family is here most most of my friends are here um and I just I got homesick by the end of my fellowship and I missed Chicago quite a bit um and I learned that about myself while I was in Winston you know I have been you know I went to Alabama for undergrad and I've been I've lived quite a few places but um ultimately I think at at my old age now uh I I realized that Chicago is the place I want to be and and where I want to start uh you know start my life um but that isn't to say that there wasn't wonderful opportunities available um in in Winston or with Advocate uh I hope that doesn't discourage or Scare uh perspective fellows um from the system I know um a lot of you know fellows when they look at you know where they want to do their Fellowship that's that's a thing to consider is um how much retention is the system invested in in their fellows so uh I hope that doesn't dissuade anyone I know I think almost all the other fellows found great um spots and career choices that they made in within the system and I couldn't be more happy for them um everyone was uh so great and so talented so yeah totally just a personal choice and a location based decision I appreciate you sharing that because that's actually why I was asking that question is we you know utilize these results these survey results and sometimes we see you know anything below 95% retention and we're going to say oh that program people don't like staying there right but that's not the truth in a lot of areas and that's why I I you know wanted to bring it up with you on why we shouldn't always you know utilize that uh retention as as the reason for not choosing a program totally and you know life happens like I know some fellows in the class above me um you know their partner got a new job in a new city for you know had to relocate and try to find a job in that market people start families you know there's a beby of reasons of why uh you may not be retained I think in in the more rare cases is when it's truly not a good fit or or for the fellow right and you know if that's the case of course uh I have not heard that yet from any of the fellows but that is what we're doing here at the American Journal of healthcare strategy if someone has a bad experience we will investigate it but so far it seems like most of these organizations and especially Advocate are really working hard I mean Advocate seems to be the best fellow one of the best fellowships in the country country from we've identified yeah and I think um now you know Cole we spoke a little bit about how the merger was relatively new when I started my when I started my fellowship we were the first cohort of fellows post merger uh and so it really was a learning process on how to navigate uh the new world of of larger Advocate Health in these new markets um and I think uh for future cohorts of fellows it's really really going to be even better experience because we've uh we try to set up um more of a collaborative model for you know um if you're a Midwest fellow in Wisconsin or Illinois now there's opportunities to go do uh an enrichment day down in the Southeast and two or some you know hospitals in Charlotte and some hospitals in Winston maybe the Wake Forest Baptist campus um I think we've uh and not just you know my cohort of fellows but the leadership was really invested in making the con ction across the system so it feels more like a system Fellowship um un less like you're site specific even with Mayo Clinic you know which is very large there's not that level of opportunity to move from you know like you said the enrichment day to go from you know the Chicago area down to the South um and of course some people like a single sight Fellowship so nothing wrong with that but if you're looking for a multi sight this seems like the ultimate multi sight experience I would have to agree um and another thing I'd like to I'd like to shout out um wake for is Baptist specifically but advocate in general is I know wake is one of the oldest and longest standing Fellowship programs in the country the leadership truly truly could not be more invested uh in the fellowship experience and I think that's definitely reflected systemwide for the fellows leaders are investing their time their resources and and their uh wisdom truly um to give back to the fellows um I know even my fellowship for the first year uh we had leaders from the Midwest come and speak to us and and share some insights of their system and their site and how their career path has formed um so I think it's just going to continue to get better incredible thank you so much for coming on Colin uh it seems like Advocate and and yourself both have very Bright Futures uh ahead of you so couldn't be more appreciative and we hope to have you back on again in the future thanks for having me Cole it's truly a pleasure</p>