The Nationwide Childrens Administrative Fellowship with Victoria Marrow

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy I'm joined by a special guest this evening Victoria Victoria please introduce yourself and your role hi everyone good evening my name is Victoria Meo I was previously the administrator fellow for the joint fellowship program for Nationwide Children's in the Ohio State wxer Medical Center I have recently transitioned within the last month into my current role which is I'm the business operations manager for Women and Infants at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center [Music] a really unique fellowship program and a great outcome from that fellowship program I think it combines a lot of those combines a lot of those skills so I'm excited to talk about this today your journey starts back at a university where we've had a few guests from before the University of K please talk about why you decided to go into healthcare administration in the first place yeah uh good question so when I was in undergrad I knew I and I feel like this is a story of a lot of people I knew I wanted to do something in the healthcare realm but didn't know what exactly I thought I wanted to be a physician's assistant for a long time and so picked up some shadowing hours and saw fluids and and all of that I'm like okay this is not for me um but I knew that I wanted to still be in the realm and if I'm being honest I didn't know that much about the healthcare administration side I um I think it was my sophomore year I had like a a public health major just general major because I knew I wanted to do something in healthcare but during that time what kind of got me into my why um my mom was diagnosed with multiple Myoma and so I would drive home like every weekend every other weekend to go to her chemo uh treatments with her and my siblings and I were very um involved in her patient care and her patient care journey and so being able to sit in on her appointments walk through that entire process with her was really able to understand there's the clinical side but what we do at on Administration side really can impact the patient experience um process Improvement um the patient's family as well and so that kind of really drew me into the healthcare administration side um one of the great things about Ohio state is her care team her oncology team they had even met with me to walk through what healthcare administration looks like or at least from their knowledge and so that gave me a little glimpse of what my future could look like went back to um Kentucky after spending a weekend with my mom and going to her appointments and U met with a program director for UK and quickly found out okay I think I want to Pivot to this healthcare administration route and um it's been a whirlwind of knowledge and learning ever since and um you know I'm really grateful that I'm on the path that I'm on and it's cool to now be on the other side being on the patient care family side previously it is a very uh kind of heartwarming experience in a way that you know we we hear this from a lot of people but you take that adversity and that challenge of having you know someone so close to you going through these health issues and you turn it into something you're passionate about and I think that's really beautiful I also think it it's a testament to how important that patient experience is because you're now with you know part of the Ohio State Community as an employee and so that's really important how far is uh Kentucky uh where you were traveling back to visit your mother what was that distance like it's about a three and a half hour drive and it's a it's a straight shot and so I got so used to doing it and you know even after her um the the type of cancer that she had there's not a remission for it but essentially they like to control it based off of the treatment that you have and so um once her treatments started slowing down I would still go home occasionally so I'm so used to that three and a half hour drive it it became like a second nature to be able to do that back and forth I can uh I can get that I'm from uh originally from the Charlotte area and you know that between there and Raleigh is about two and a half hours and make you know my parents were in Raleigh so I made that a bunch of times but that can still be challenging having to go through all that while you're an undergrad but or in in grad school but you you came out very successful you did very very well right and so do you have any advice just briefly and how you were able to stay focused during your Graduate Studies while visiting you know your mother driving back and forth and dealing with that anxiety and that stress of what was going on yeah I it was really really hard honestly I think finding a support system that you can anchor to that was really essential for me obviously I had my family in Columbus when I would go visit my mom but then I had a support system at school who you know all of my professors and teachers were aware of the situation and I think being able to openly communicate you know if you're struggling with something I think it's okay to share that with people and let them know where you are so I would say support is something that's huge I think something that I had to do was find a hobby or something that I found grounding to myself like you said with a lot of the Stress and Anxiety going back and forth worri about my mom but also still trying to pass classes and so I just I joined like inter mural Sports and I used to play sports in high school so that was something that was grounding to myself to be able to do that I think I did like flag football like all guys and it was it was an interesting EXP erience but um it was something that I enjoyed to do on a weekly basis and then um you know I think everyone has things that they believe in things that they don't believe in I'm a person of faith and so really just grounding myself in that as well absolutely that's wonderful and and I'm glad that you were able to to have those support systems you've gone on to have a large impact on people through your fellowship and now your role at the time that you were finishing up your Graduate Studies you know how did you identify this fellow ship how long did you know about fellowships in general for why did you decide to go that route yeah so um I I feel like I keep starting my stories with I didn't know much about the X Y and Z but it's true I I kind of heard about fellowships and it was in between my first and second year of my grad program we had to do a residency or an internship and so I did mine through the um American Hospital Association and they had like a diversity Equity inclusion program and so I spent my summer in uh Vancouver was Washington with peace health and I was able to look at their workplace violence program and spent the summer doing that but we had a cohort of eight other interns and a lot of the interns there they were going through the process of beginning Fellowship applications and so you know we would have weekends or we could go hike and do whatever and some of them would be staying in the hotel and doing their application and so I just sat down and talked with a few of them like what interest you in a fellowship how many are you applying to like what are what are the things that you consider and why is a fellowship beneficial and so after spending time talking with some of the interns I had reached out to some of our alumni in my UK program and there were a few fellas that I talked through um that a few fellas that I talked to that kind of helped me tailor if I wanted to apply to a fellowship what that would look like what made sense for me and once I heard about what Fellowship are I'm like okay 100% yes I do not know what I want to do next I feel like I need that textbook to real life experience and so um you know once I found out what they were it was 100% that I wanted to do it but I do not recommend doing this I only applied to one place and it was mostly because I had the mindset that I'm going to go really hard for this one fellowship if I get it great if not there's always a second plan or something else that's destined for me and so you know growing up in Columbus I was able to be around Nationwide Children's I was a patient there for my entire life until I was 18 and I had I remember there was a nurse that I had that um was black and she really influenced me and uh understanding of healthcare and advocating for yourself and so that was something that I remember to this day and one of the reasons why um very small reason but one of the reasons why I was interested in applying to Children's as well as we have an initiative at Children's called healthy neighborhoods healthy families and if you're if you've been in the Columbus area any of the viewers have been in the Columbus area the Nationwide Children's Campus has expanded tremendously and one of the things that I find so um great about Nationwide Children's is they are surrounded by a community of lower socioeconomic status one of the things that makes me very proud though of that organization is I think sometimes with Healthcare organizations in areas of lower socioeconomic status you find like this bulldoze effect of healthcare organization comes in and they try and make change they don't talk with the community um and I didn't see that at Children's while I was doing research just living in the community they have Community Advocate programs they do um programs all throughout the community they do healthy neighborhood Healthy Families which I mentioned already um which is they go into the South the Lyon and South Columbus areas and they restore housing um they offer affordable housing they do food clinics and food pantries and so I don't know that was just something that was so feeling to me and and something that I've actually been able to witness my entire life growing up and then obviously on the Ohio State Side my mom was a patient here and so there was that personal connection and tie you know being able to see both organizations in the community growing up whether it be at school events races um whatever it may be I've always known that these were two top organizations in the Columbus area that I found very attractive and wanted to be a part of and it was so unique that it was a joint Fellowship it was like a win-win so um that that's kind of why I found interesting applying to both and I think we're one of the only programs in the country that has that joint option and so it's really interesting because you have it's essentially like two one-year fellowships because you get comfortable in you know month six of your fellowship year at Children's and then it's almost time to transition to OSU and the same thing when you get to OSU and then it's time to look for jobs and so I don't know I just I found it to be really really unique and like I said I put all my eggs in one basket and luckily it worked out but if it didn't then there would have been another plan for me and it would have been okay that is very very unique uh fellowship and also that decision to apply for only one I've only talked to two or three people out of the you know 70 or 80 I've spoken with that have done that and so it's very rare and like you said I I find that the ones who succeed in that have a huge amount of personal ties to it how competitive are Fellowship applications for those who don't know they are very competitive I think I told my program director I was going to apply to one and she was like I I have all the faith in you in the world but I think you should maybe apply to at least a few more because of how competitive they are um just being on the other end and reviewing applications and going through the application cycle we receive hundreds of applications that we screen through and so to be able to really make yourself Stand Out is really important and something that at least is noticeable to me on my end is um when we're reviewing applications you know we have the personal statement some people submit a cover letter resume um most people are um most people are uh they qualify for the job just based off the resume and so you really have to make yourself stand out within that personal statement cover letter um go the extra mile to make sure all your eyes are dotted te's are crossed things like that um um but fellowships the application cycle alone is just very competitive to even get that initial interview I would say something that helped me with only applying to one and like I said I'm not recommending this um because I only had to focus on applying to one I was really able to put my all into my personal statement and tailor it to the organizations and I think sometimes where applicants go wrong is it's very generalized and so you really want to make sure that you are doing your research attending webinars and tailoring your personal statement to include your why and then what are your goals and through the fellowship how does that align with the goals of the organization and and you know the values of that organization and so long-winded answer but very very competitive process um it's a humbling process and you know I think everyone ends up where they're supposed to be in the end very good advice I appreciate you you spending time to talk about it because people don't always you know who haven't had experience I guess or or also like parents who've been to college at at the Masters or graduate level you know mine hadn't those applications are different than what a normally job application is right and it's it's really challenging and so you said that you screen through hundreds of applicants just real quick how many fellows are there concurrently admitted at once to your program yeah so there's one at Children's and one at Ohio State so we hire a new one every year but the way it's split your first year is at Nationwide Children's and your second year is at Ohio State wexer Medical Center wow so you could get you know a 1% acceptance rate there I mean that's that's uh severe so congratulations on getting where you you you've gotten I that's incredible and so I'm really interested in this this unique program now I know that in medicine they do do things like this for a lot of different Specialties right they'll have you rotate you know if you're in neurology through a pediatric specialty but I've never heard about this before for healthcare administration so can you just break down how it works in terms of the why behind it as well why are they switching you know you from one place to another yeah I think um it's it's been a joint Fellowship for as far as I know for 25 years plus and so I think there's a historical component to it of both organizations just having that relationship why they were jointed all those years ago because there were some um fellows that only did children for one year and then only did Ohio State for one year and I think that was just and this is just context for you um background due to like leadership relationships but I'm really not sure of the is what you did differently at each place in terms because one's children right and one's more of an adult population yes so I can answer this one a little more clearly so um you're good when I break when we break down year one versus year two year one is at Nationwide Children's and so that if you had to compare the scale of I don't know even their leadership team compared to the OSU side it's very very different and so OSU has um business units that they divide by so we have the rosart hospital the James U Brain and Spine University hospital and they all have different Specialties whereas children's it's kind of just all under one umbrella and so the initial um I think while we start with year one it's a little bit easier to grasp at Children's than coming to year two and kind of having this larger academic Medical Center that you have to understand now it doesn't mean it's impossible and it's hard to do because we've all done it but I just think it's a it's a nice easier start to be able to understand the leadership structure how things flow um on a smaller scale versus just kind of throwing you into the large academic Medical Center um when I think about like the work that we did and projects that we did year one versus year two year one was a lot of um you do intro meetings the first like two weeks to month with different senior leadership um VPS um managers whoever it may be especially of areas that you may be interested in and so for me I was really interested in um Community work and um work with our school based Pro our school health programs and so I wanted to tailor my intome meetings to meet with those leaders to see if there were projects that I could work on in those spaces but generally how it goes is you get projects from three different routes so through your intro meetings through um working with um business planning and development and those that's where you'll do like strp plans business plans things like that and then the Third Way is just kind of seeking out on your own um which I actually liked it was kind of you know the world is your oyster and you can whatever interests you that's where you can try and find a project in that area it's not it's rare that it's set that you come in with like four projects Stu they want you to do now that might be the case in business planning and development because they heavily utilize the fellow to work with that team it's good for understanding service lines it's good you learn a lot of great skills from learning how to do a business plan learning how to do a strat plan looking at data things like that that I found to be very very helpful throughout my career um my short career so far getting start getting started um but you know things like um interpreting data knowing what to look for doing volume projections things like that that are very essential in business plans that translated into my year 2 and even in my role now so those are kind of the three routes that you go through for childrens in order to get projects and you're not on like a rotation basis or anything like that it's kind of just based on what they have going on in the organization from a strategic standpoint what things interest you and then your direct preceptor if he has work that he wants you to do that's kind of where your projects will come from as well um on the Ohio State Side I would say my year at Ohio State was a little more operational than my first year at Children's um children's was like I said strategy based um and I was doing some process Improvement a few operational projects but I think that year two is really where you see that a little bit more and so something that I appreciated was during my entire first year at Children's I was meeting with my preceptor um Dennis delile um at U on like a bonly basis and so he would walk through the projects that I was doing he had just kind of gotten to know me he'd asked what I liked what I didn't like about my project and so by the time I got to OSU he had kind of tailored um like a plan or like a project plan for things that I could start on um strategic initiatives that I could be involved in at Ohio State and really just understood who I was as a person so that he could kind of pick out what made sense for me to join once I got there and so um I don't know if that fully answer the question of the breakdown but it is different um but you do get to transfer the skills pretty easily across both it's just one is on a little bit of a smaller scale but children's are still huge and then you get to Ohio State and it's academic Medical Center on a way bigger scale that you that you navigate through but I feel like I had the tools and resources that I needed to do so and I feel like I had the training from year one to be able to do so as well so year two is it does require in away some of that previous experience from year one then I would say so I would say so I think I think well I would say in both years you have to be able to deal with ambiguity but because you've gone through that year of ambiguity trying to find things ask the questions in year one it makes it a little bit easier to be able to you know move when you're given a project in year two but you know I I would say that I had the skills and resources that I needed from year one to be able to translate to real to year two do you feel like people in general could benefit a lot from twoyear fellowships we know that there are not too many left but that the students of those seem really happy do you feel like those two years are really beneficial yeah I do I was um I was talking to someone about this the other day and and I feel like with a one-year Fellowship you get into like month like three and you're still trying to figure things out figure out who reach out to for certain things and then you get to month six and you're starting to get the hang of things and you're like oh it's almost over and then you're getting you're getting towards the end of your months of your fellowship and then it's time to go to you know whatever you're moving on to next whereas a two-year Fellowship I really feel like it gives you that sense to say okay I've spent year one trying to figure out what it is that I'm doing and building relationships building a name for myself and now I can really act on that in Year too and so that's what I appre appreciate it about this Fellowship although it's two different organizations and I said earlier it kind of feels like two different oneye fellowships I still felt like what I learned in year one I was able to bring a better version of myself to year two um and and I don't know I feel like I grew a ton from year one to year two I think that's really good advice for for students because some people want a shorter you know come in you know time flies by and some people really do want a much more indepth long experience and so I think that good good advice for everyone and then so tell us about where you've gone since right you're now in in your full-time role tell us if you don't mind about what you do and also my big question is do you feel like you were prepared to come into the role yeah yeah so I like I said earlier I'm the and infants and I feel like some it's different every day what it is that I'm doing so one of the big things that we implemented recently was we had a um triage unit that we implemented into an obstetric Ed and so just to give an example of some of the stuff that I would do for that um we had to work through um data reporting we had to work through policy updates um registration process workflow updates and so it's a lot of bringing people together trying to decide on decisions disseminating that information and then um looking at data to make sure that it's working on the back end and so that's a lot of what I'm doing in my role right now I've spent the first two weeks to a month just shadowing trying to understand and it's a little unique because at the end of my fellowship I kind of took on this project manager role for the obstetric Ed and so I was kind of in the role for at least two months before I officially started but that's the nice thing about the transition is that they kind of place you in a put you in a place where they could see you transitioning on that team and so that worked out well for me um but day-to-day looks like for me I spend a lot of time shadowing trying to round on units so I um help support um impatient units of Labor and Delivery an artum and postpartum and so I like to make sure I round on those different units especially because in the fellowship you spend a lot of time with you know administrative other administrative um co-workers and it's not always your on clinical units all the time and so that was an adjustment for me and so I've really wanted to make sure that I'm rounding shadowing getting my name out there um a lot of what I'm doing as well as I oversee our budget and so that has been something that um if I'm being honest wasn't a skill set of mine at the beginning of my fellowship but I've now since become more comfortable with it I will say on things in my new role that I don't always feel comfortable with or don't maybe I feel like it's a skill that I could develop more because I was in the fellowship here I have a list of um resources that I'm able to reach out to whether it be our financial controller um head of HR um whoever I I feel like I have a a team of support team in my back pocket like a secret weapon that I'm able to pull out in my current role that helps me get things um moving it helps me gets things done what maybe they don't know the answer but they're able to point me in the right direction of someone who can help me and so that's something that I feel like has been really beneficial from my fellowship transitioning into my new role um I think you asked if I felt prepared for the role and it might not be all the content that I necessarily feel prepared for every day because there's something new every day you really never know but I will say the fellowship has fully trained me to be able to handle the ambiguity to be able to handle just being given a problem and having to create a solution from it and I feel like that's the foundation of moving into a new role like this where I might not have you know all the skills day one now I have the training in background but that's going to take time for me to grow and learn as I become more comfortable with the unit and um the clinical staff and and whatnot but I feel like I have the training and skill set that I need to to be able to be a a contribut a member to this team uh this leadership team within women and infants and so you know I I can't thank the my preceptors at Children's and um Rick Miller and Dennis at OSU enough for all that they've done for me to be able to get me to where I am now and um really just everyone that's been a mentor through my fellowship year one and year two and a lot of the previous fellows have been essential in transitioning into this new role there are um two other fellows within the organization that uh were fellows two to three years ago that I call on a regular basis for hey have you seen this issue with Staffing or hey have you seen this issue with your budget before and they're always a phone call away and quick to answer any questions say hey have you tried this reach out to this person X Y and Z and so yeah longwinded answer again but I I definitely feel prepared for um my role in the grand scheme of things yes and here you are going on to kind of Follow That tradition and giving fellows incoming fellows or graduate students advice I do really appreciate you doing that and thank you for your your long-winded answers it's very appreciative or appreciated uh to hear you kind of explain the different intricacies of of where you are because some people worry you know even some of our our early people who are just graduating from their Fellowship they worry oh I don't feel completely prepared for this but like you said they prepared you to know how to get prepared which I think is yeah excellent um so thank you so much for for spending the the evening right before you head home Victoria I really do appreciate it and I hope we can stay in touch sounds good thank you so much cole thank you do</p>