The Moses/Weitzman Health System Administrative Fellowship: Wildaline Figaro

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy and I'm joined by a special guest delene delene please introduce yourself and your role okay hi everybody uh my full name is wiene Figaro um but many people know me as delene I go by delene and I am currently an administrative fellow at Moses whitesman health system located in Connecticut but as well as the system is really like Broad and n in the sense of the US so it's not just in Connecticut that we have people working for us we are pretty much in the 50 states [Music] still that is really cool uh kind of Fellowship to be a part of we're really excited to kind of delve into how that works first I want to go back to the introduction to your career that bachelor's degree in public health what was the motivation for getting a undergraduate degree in public health well that's a great question and I'm going to be real honest with you Cole um you know my initial thought of going into Health Care field will extends from my background as a kid growing up in Florida and you know basically coming from Haiti and then um living in Florida being a translator for my family every where they go whether that be Healthcare Etc I was always the one that's like the translator right and um probably um misdiagnose somebody in my family at some point I'm sorry in advance but um that really stems everything from why I was interested in health care and I actually wanted to be a nurse that was why I went um you know to school for for my bachelor degree but things didn't pin out that way and honestly I didn't want to be in school for too too long and so I was like you know what public health also had some of my interests and I would love to take that back one day to Haiti and so why not you know start from from that aspect of Health Care so that's how I really got interested in public health was the nursing didn't work out and I also didn't want to be in school for wa wa too long exploring too many options and you know making myself more confused so I went with something that was a little bit more broad so that way I can kind of you know Focus later on in life with it I think was an excellent choice you know public health is such like you said it's abroad but it also gives you really good foundational knowledge and so what are the the languages that you speak at this point are you you do you speak many many languages or or one or two what does that look like for you so I speak um fluent Haitian Creole I was born in Haiti um moved to the states when I was 9 years old and um you know lived in Florida did my schooling there in in Florida so Haitian creol is the language besides English that I speak fluently I'm very fond of that language one of my co-workers uh she speaks it her she's a first generation as well and one of my my close friends back in North Carolina their parents uh do speak English but they still have that heavy accent and I love to to listen to it and of course up in Maine I was exposed to that a lot during the the blueberry farming that would go on and so I am familiar with that that language and I and I actually really enjoy listening to it my uh Grand mother is was French and so there's some uh words I think that are shared between French very much so there's some similarities however I want to make sure a lot of people think Haitian creel is French but it's not so it's its own language his own dialect that's spoken right it's just we do have some French influence because of course you know Haiti was you know colonized by the French so makes sense that we have a lot of French influence and the words are similar absolutely I think there's there's a few words that are mostly correct translations but I think the vast majority are separate right in the meaning correct yeah and then like they may sound the same but then when you see it in writing completely different oh very interesting that's that's good to know I appreciate you sharing that yeah it's um anyways thank you for sharing that a bit about yourself I love to learn about you know kind of the personal experiences and I want to ask what led you to go with that mha instead of an M or an MBA or one of those other options you know I'm a very much like let's explore let's see what's out there type of thing I I'm not all about the status quo all the time I'm like you know what I have a bachelor and you know in public health why not do something a little bit different but still has some type of connection with what I am already used to and I chose the mha because I knew it would also increase my leadership experience and also gave me a broad broader way of looking at health care and Public Health Care in general so I thought that would be me you know most fitting honestly was to get the mha and I'm glad I did during your mha you worked as a I think it was during it right you worked as a community health worker with Davis County how did you manage that role was it a part-time full-time what was that like oh Chad that was a full-time full time job and also going to school fulltime so it was definitely challenging but I have to say um you know my supervisor and higher up managers at the Davis County Health Department were phenomenal at really like helping me manage my schedule and also knowing that I am a grad student and I have a lot on my plate besides me working so they really were a big encouragement to me as I was finishing my grad school honestly halfway through my grad school I was like I can't do this I'm sick of this I'm tired I want to just quit but every time I go to work like how's school going you know you can do it you're almost there and a lot of the people I work with they either have mph or maybe they had know people who got mha and so they were very much encouraged and like this is a big deal to finish okay we encourage you and they really gave me that freedom to do so um work out my schedule perfectly and it it was great having that support from them and then you have that work experience too right when you're coming out of it you have this extensive experience and kind of on the note of of support do a lot of your family members have you know education are you one of the first in my family I was the first to go uh you know through undergrad and so what was that that kind of support structure like for you at home well you know um this is a great question because I am myself and my cousin are the first generations to have gotten a bachelor and a master's degree in the US so this was a big deal for us you know we're not only you know proving to oursel that we can do it but also it's a testament to our future families um and also our current families that we we are not going to stay where we were and we're going to elevate we're going to move up we're going to do bigger better things for ourselves so that way that our our lives and our health can be better because we know that based on research and all of that those who have higher degrees right tend to have less Health you know disparities because they understand things a little bit better right they might be able to understand what the doctor is saying a little bit better and read what what's going on and so for me in general and my cousin for both of us very much like this is a big deal this is something that we accomplish that we're proud of ourselves and our families continually are still saying how much this is such a big accomplishment coming from a first gener you know first generation Haitian in America I love that and you know I love kind of hearing the way that you're explaining things it shows you have that public health background you're not speaking you know purely from a business standpoint a lot of people don't believe me when I talk about how the educational disparities can supersede the racial disparities in a lot of cases and of course those racial disparities are still very real and dependent from education but I love hearing about how you're you're elevating not just yourself but your family up with that education it's been important for me as well with my parents neither of them having gone to college it's a struggle of course navigating you know this financial aid and all this crazy stuff but it's definitely worthwh and you mentioned that you felt like your mha was really a good decision compared with the other program you could have got into why was that why did you find it especially valuable yeah you know I always say that um while I was in grad school picking Weber State University in Ogden Utah as my you know University of choice to do my mha I always say this this program not only helped me see that I can accomplish something this big but I also learned so much from my you know cohorts my classmates who also are such motivators for you know for me to finish this degree and I got a lot of Lifetime friendship also with my professors too some of them because of this mha program and I thought they did a really great job at helping us see the Whole Health Care public health system in general and they gave us like really handson type of experience for us to really practice our leadership skills not only that they work really hard to bring in people that are currently doing jobs that we you know would like to do in the future bring in speakers to our classes so that we can interact with people that are CEOs that are you know director of HR or marketing Etc you know so that was a really pivotal moment in the mha program is because we're not only just doing the didactic learning the books and all of that but they put a lot of emphasis empasis on making connections with your classmate because one day they might be your boss you might be their boss they might be a connection that you need Etc vice versa and also just making sure that people are coming in that are doing the jobs that are actually facing Health Care problems and it's not just like theoretical it is real and they're dealing with it and they're also trying to figure out like what is the best Innovative way to accomplish this or to do this you know how can we strategically apply this I mean they are literally doing it and that was great to see in the mha program so you would absolutely then recommend Weber State for for their mha yes I would recommend Weber State sometime people say Weber but I want to say it's Weber State we thank you for correcting me Weber State University Ogden Utah absolutely that mha program topnotch in my book not just because I was a former student but also because I was a former student and I'm biased and I believe it's also a public university right so the tuition is not outrageous you're not spending hundreds of thousands a year on this exactly excellent that's wonderful very nice and so you you have this incredible experience and then of course you you also have you know life experience you have you know work experience why did you choose to do a fellowship and not head straight into you know to work you know one of the reason why I chose like Fellowship brow is really because of one of my professors Steve baitman um hello Steve he really motivated um you know all of his students to think about a fellowship now it wasn't a push it's optional of course after you finish graduating you can or you you you choose to do it or not you know but he really says a fellowship will give you experiences that you may not encounter right and and it's not and I want to make sure I say this because I don't want people to think while watching this if you don't do a fellowship you're not qualified Etc or you're you know you're worth is less no a fellowship is great if you are chosen to do that fellowship and you choose to do it but I also don't want to undermine those who did not choose a fellowship that has nothing to do with it but but for me specifically doing a fellowship was crucial because even though I had work experience in the public health sector I really wasn't too sure about strictly just going into hospital and trying to apply everything that I learned in the classroom setting I kind of wanted like a training wheels right and fellowships are kind of just that instead of going into a project management role Etc right away you kind of get to see things in a different perspective as as an observer when you're a fellow right yes you are working with leaders yes you are project managing certain things Etc you're exposed to a lot of different things however because you're fellow they know that this is a learning experience for you right this is not something that you automatically choosing to do right away and you're a project manager you're managing a ER a lot more pressure on you so the training wheel really helps you to kind of feel whether or not this is something that you really want to do or you want to kind of switch completely you know and how was that experience at it's pronounced wheatman Moses wheatman Moses whitesman Moses whitesman thank you how was that experience at Moses whitesman did it fulfill kind of what you're saying with being able to get that introduction to be able to get that you know more extensive training how how was it at at Moses whitesman yes and so I will be finishing my fellowship in about a month or so um this is a 12month period fellowship and I have to say you know at Moses whitesman Health System um you know because we are a huge health system and an fqac which is really like unique right there's there's not a lot of fellowships out there that are really just focused on ferally qualified Health Centers and so this is a unique experience in itself and it's a newly health system that was formed back in like 2022 and so having this experience um is has really opened my eyes to a different things in health care and that experience has been great but also it has made me think about whether or not this is the path that I want want to go into right like do I want to stay in a federally qualified Health Center where primarily our patients are you know lowincome individuals or families that we're working with and you know we may we may have a lot of different disparities that we we need to address right and and we may not get the the same reimbursement as if we were a hospital base you know system Etc things like that you know fiscally that we have to think about we're serving population that have a lot of disparities income wise not the best but how can we still serve them you know with the highest quality of care and you know affordability you know Etc so being part of Moses Whitman health system has really taught me that you know working with such populations like this really takes really takes effort and it takes somebody who really cares about addressing those things because it's not where you would say the money is at but it is where the heart is like what is what is it that you really are focusing on right if you want to make the big bucks the big money we know where to go insurance is your is your guy but you know working with federally qualified Health Centers it does have a lot of maneuvering to be done because we're serving populations that desperately needs us how did you come across Moses whitesman because I have not actually heard of it before it's not you know I've heard of of a few of the major ones Kaiser uh you know Ginger um so you know Ascension there's a few large multi-state systems you know we hear of but I was surprised to hear that they're in you know Moses whitesman you said is in across the country in every state and so how did you come across them and how many fellowships in total did you apply to yeah so in total when I first started the fellowship I apply for about six fellowships in in total and um and then I really Moses weitman was the was the one that chose me um the other ones didn't go as as it's planned but however though the way that I found out about Moses wisman was through the nacat system which is the system that you can use to you know apply for different fellowships if that health system or wherever you're applying uses it it's a really great you know resource and I cannot remember the full name but I know that it is a Nath cast that's how that's that's the shorten version of it so I used that system to kind of help me go through all of the fellowships and read the descriptions briefly of you know who they serve Etc kind of to give you a picture of what the what the fellowship will be and it stood out to me you know I saw as like a federally qualified Health Center Community Health Center Incorporated is part of that Moses whitesman health system and I was like I I like this because my public health background connected with it and so that's how I found out about it was through the nacat system and and it just catched my eye it catched my eye that's impressive how how many in total did you say you applied to I did about six yeah six and he threw that through that napat system through the napat excellent wow and so you kind it kind of matched you with the perfect Organization for your experience and background correct uhuh which I was very very happy about and I was like I did not expect this at all but it worked out so I'm very glad and where do you feel like you want to go after this like you said it helps you to identify what you want to do and where you want to go and what kind of problems you want to tackle so what problems are you know and areas are you trying to tackle next yeah you know that's the hard thing sometimes even though you are in a fellowship sometime it's hard to kind of just say what's the next step right because we're all kind of in that situation those who are doing fellowships right now like all right I've gotten a lot of experience so what's next for me type of thing but I think for me um I am keeping a lot of my options open and that might not be what people want to hear like Fellowship should help you focus you're just so interested so many things it's even harder because you got a lot of like you know different experiences with different things in the or in the organization but I'm still really interested in Public Health Community Focus work as a community health worker I feel like my heart is mainly the community based organization work that is happening with you know those underserved populations who need health care and who need affordability the most and so basically working in the community doing community engagement and making sure that my focus is not just only underserved populations but immigrants especially since I have like families who are immigrant and I was an immigrant coming into the country so helping those immigrants coming to the country really navigate the Healthcare System them because till this day I have family members who are you know getting diagnosed with things that they really shouldn't be diagnosed with because they don't understand they don't get it right and so I'm really grateful for that that is wonderful and and we need more immigrants in the United States especially you know the way the the workforce is going immigrants are good for our Workforce it's good for our cities and the biggest thing is how can we care for a more diverse population we can't we've already done bad at caring for the population we have right and so now there's there's more complexity and we need to learn to care for that so I really like that mission and I think you do have that excellent background for that so I I wish you great success in that maybe a A drph or PhD is in your future then with with that mission so that's excellent thank you thank you Cole and I hope not cannot de it more schooling cannot do it this was enough oh that's that's funny yeah know I love that that's that's excellent yeah um wow so so what do you have any recommendations for individuals earlier in their career like myself people who may be just getting their mha or just starting their Fellowship yes you know I do have some some advice I would like to share and those are you know a lot of the time I think when I did receive advice it's like get involved as much as possible don't say no you know all of these things but this one is more internally I would say do do not have impostor syndrome don't think you shouldn't be in the room because you don't have experience you're new you're this and that your confidence goes a long way okay have the confidence in yourself to do a fellowship to finish it you know as best as you can with your skills and to really be patient with yourself and show yourself some selflove okay I know in nowadays in this world is a lot of talk about self-love but but it is true you the one that has to know your strength don't try to have other people validate it all the time because people are busy leaders are busy they don't always have time to give the recognition that you really deserve but if you know yourself and you know that you know you bring something to the organization and there's a change that can happen with that little something then go for it okay be confident in you be confident in the skills that you bring and go for it don't question yourself about whether or not you should apply if it's a thought and it's a good thought go after it not what's the worst thing that can happen they say no and somebody else picks you okay so that's all I can really say is really be true to you love yourself be kind and have the confidence to do it all beautiful advice and a beautiful career story I really do appreciate you sharing your time this evening after work it means a lot to me and I'm sure audience will really enjoy hearing these insights from you so thank you so much for coming on thank you for having me I appreciate it</p>