The Northwell Health Administrative Fellowship with Katherine Sanchez

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy joined by a special guest from northwell Health Katherine Katherine please introduce yourself thank you so much cole so my name is Katherine Sanchez I an administrative fellow here at northwall Health I've actually been with the organization for about 11 years uh started off from humble beginnings as a patient transporter so I got to move patients around from test site to their rooms and I navigated my myself throughout the whole Healthcare system in different areas so I had lateral movements I worked in places like the O as a peroperative assistant I worked as a nursing assistant handling credentialing and even provider enrollment and ultimately landed here as an administr fell it's been a really fun journey and a lot of learning and really communicating with my co-workers and I just ultimately thankful for even being part of the organization [Music] I'm sure northwell is very uh thankful to have someone like yourself I've spoken with so many people from northwell about the Loyalty that people have to the organization you've been there 11 years which is incredible right modern day people switch every two or three can I ask how old you were when when you started at northw yeah um so I actually was how old was I I was 20 years old when I started at northwell so I always joke around and say that um it does what is it you are counting your age from when you become 18 so by that definition I'm just 11 years old at northwell no that's excellent and it's it's great though I mean that's that's a long time and and through a lot of different experiences you know looking at your your resume you got your Associates you got your bachelors and then your Masters all within northwell and while working fulltime right which is a challenging accomplishment so you know just to tell you a little bit of my background and my history so I came from a little social economic background I actually was what is it first gen immigrant my mom brought me to this country when I was 8 years old so it was kind of um learning you know like that there was social determinance of Health that really affect the way that you grow up and the outcomes and when I you know although I was a high achiever in high school I didn't have the financial means to go to a prestigious college and when it was time for me to be on my own I had to work at the same time so that I could attend school and afford it so that's when northw kind of kinks in because they offer me the opportunity to have tuition reimbursement so they help me pay for my associates my bachelors and the Masters and I had access to mentorship programs and wonderful leaders who actually were from HRA so I think that was also a determination of why I went to that program because to me it was learn meeting these wonderful people and how they are and how they really care about leadership was something that inspired me and made a difference in my life and I felt that I wanted to be that person also that inspired others to me when I was even getting my associates and and I originally wanted to be a nurse I I was really passionate about it I thought I I felt that I could be a good nurse but unfortunately anatomy and physiology did not feel the same way about that so that was okay but because I was a transporter uh my manager was the one who gave me that first shot of okay let's go to a bed management meeting and it was one of those like I didn't have the title to be in this room but I was invited to be and starting to learn how leaders spoke to one another how they were problem solving and I also had uh Sparks of ideas and and I wanted to say hey I I have this idea why don't we do X Y and Z bringing that Viewpoint of being next to the patient and seeing how patient care is and how everybody else within the uh Department's thought I thought that maybe like I could be also part of that and I could be a great leader so they really tapped into that hidden potential which made me decide that okay nursing might not be it but I could also impact the lives of many by pursuing a masters in healthcare administration so I went that route I decided to be part of you know the the leadership of how do we Implement these new ideas the these new um process improvements and how that affects you know the the the workers as well I felt that I think that our biggest consumers are our employees I think if you are able to keep your employees and the staff happy that's going to deliver good patient care for the rest of everyone so that's why I decided to go this route that's why I never stopped going to school no matter what I mean at the same time and I and I always say this is one of my greatest accomplishments of of my resilience at the same time that I started working for North po I was also pregnant I was expecting my son and now he's my friendly reminder of how long I've been with the organization but you know I did it for him because I wanted to give him hope that although we might not be where we want to be right now there is an opportunity for us to get better to be resilient and to just dream big I think that's very important so that that's an incredible motivation your son and an incredible story too it's just um it's really nice to hear that because you know I come from a a background you know my my dad um was you know in the plumbing industry and and you know we we lived paycheck to paycheck for a while and so um it's it's impressive to be able to do what you've done you know especially you said how old were you when you you came into the country I was eight yeah you were eight so I mean that's you know the language was there a difference in language as well yes there was so um what what is it I I didn't know anything of English I and to be honest with you in Columbia they try to teach you English and I was um I don't want to learn this language kind of attitude right like I don't have time for this but when I came and and I started school it was kind of like a no you need to learn kind of so one of the ways that my mom made me learn English was there was a dictionary and a book so I had to read the book and if I didn't know what what I was reading go look in the dictionary uh so that was something that kind of um encouraged me to learn fast and at the same time I was blessed to be in a community full of Hispanics so the school had a lot Hispanic students which they spoke Spanish so they helped me translate and I went from not knowing a lick of English to in six months knowing full well how to speak fluently read and I think you know and I and I'm very thankful for my teacher because you know I went from getting zeros at my spelling test to like getting hundreds and it was because of the non-stop reading of you know trying to uh speak with other people and try to understand the language so you know a lot of people don't think that that's a a strength of like but I'm like you are able to think in two languages that is amazing uh even if you have an accent I think don't diminish that accomplishment and we should all try to learn a second language because when you speak to somebody at like you know um Nelson mandelis said when you speak to a lang in a language that someone understands it goes to their head but if you speak to someone in a language that they speak it goes straight to their heart so it it means a lot even in healthcare now with the diverse populations that we're serving it's so incredible because you know in the US we recognize that it's challenging for people whose parents haven't been to college and you know I think of my own experience like that is challenging but then you add in this layer where you're changing you know the school environment at eight years old and that's a critical age where you're changing the school environment and it's not like you're moving from one part of Columbia to another part of Columbia right you're moving from a different culture and language into a completely different culture and language here in the US and so few people who are born in the US achieve a master's degree and and rise to the level that you are at and yet you you know were born somewhere else you learned the language you you know had these struggles and then you still achieve this in incredible amount of education and success um it is really inspiring what what is your family background if you don't mind me asking like is your you know what's your mother's background and and how did they support you into achieving what you achieved so um to tell you a little bit more about me and and my family background is my mother has a MERS in marketing in Columbia but when she came to this country you know when you have a masters you kind of have to like recertify it and she didn't how to how to do that unfortunately my father was killed in Columbia when I was 11 so the most education he had was a high school diploma and I really didn't know much after that um so it was kind of like my mother and I growing up thankfully I you know any any Hispanic will tell you that they have you know it's not just their mom and their dad it's like everybody right their family so I was blessed to have a aunt who has a masters in computer science um who's doing really well in Florida and my uncle has a M's in Business Administration in Columbia as well and my grandparents had their own business uh it was a sewing machine business it's still running till this day my grandfather does not want to retire and my grandmother is there you know supporting him and doesn't want to retire either but I think you know it really is important to have that community of your family supporting you and for them it was for me it was my family was able to achieve a masters even though it was in Colombia I can do the same and there was many times where I wanted to give up and say you know it's not the same here in the US uh that I think the best I could do is a bachelor's I don't know if I could do a master's but it was kind of as I was working and meeting other individuals and seeing how much they've accomplished that it sparked that inside of me and saying that I'm doing this for more than just myself I'm not you know more than for my family and to make them proud I'm doing this for the Next Generation who's going to listen to the story and say you know what if she can do it so can I and the real motivation to like go get that Masters was my son because to me was he's seeing me right now accomplish all these things and I and I always tell him listen I'm raising this bar but your job is to go higher so he has um right now he's like watching me grow and he's like damn you I I have to deal with like trying to do better than that but I believe in him I always tell him I do so I'm very looking forward to seeing what I Future Has and I'm very thankful like honestly my family also includes the people that I worked with as a nursing assistant I had co-workers who were willing to back me up and and take my shift if I had to or even my manager give me extra hours so I can afford class and afford food and um be able to take care of my family while I was going to school so I think you know you got to understand that when you're trying to do these Big Dreams the community also plays a big role it's not only just your family but the the people that you work with your friends and I'm very thankful to have wonderful friends as well who even though they have no idea what I'm talking about when I tell them hey I'm applying for this job they're more than supportive and say we hope you get it and that's been how I've been able to continue to be resilient and and pursue these opportunities and these dreams and and wonderful mentors as well like I I been blessed I am grateful and so and like when you say it like that I'm like wow it's very scary for me I'm like did I do that wow congratulations too on on everything you've accomplished and I really appreciate how you've emphasized the wider support you know it's it's not just your immediate family it's also the friends the co-workers in the workspace um that's a really good tip for a lot of people who might come from small families or they don't have you know like my wife does not have that much communication with their family it's so important to try to to you know stretch out and and grab as much support as you can get so that's awesome and no sorry go ahead please I'm just you know I'm one of those that says there's no such thing as a self-made person this person that says I did this by myself I got here by myself I don't believe in that I believe that it does take the community um if you ever listen to Arnold sh saker's uh Speech there was he talks about there's no such thing as a self-made person and I think that's very important when you're looking at where you're going to go because if you go with that mentality that no one is going to help you or you have to do things yourself you're really limiting yourself to the opportunities to collaborate with others to learn from one another and so that's one of the advice that I give to people especially us minorities because we're told by our families you can't depend on people don't um don't ask others for help but in reality you do have to ask for help but you know be strategic in the way that you ask for help ask for advice you know create I didn't have a safety net right like us right Cole we don't we don't have a a financial SA net to fall on if things don't work out right so we're very scared of taking our a risk and taking that leap of faith but the way that I've kind of overcome not having that safety net is asking people for advice you know um and having that community of like okay things didn't work out but I know I can go to this person for advice or if I need career advice I have mentors that I can talk to who are invested in my success and my friends so you know ask for advice and get paid twice kind of thing I like that that's a good expression excellent so you you said you were pregnant with your assign when you started at northwell right and so you were in school for almost eight years right 2015 to 2023 um you know the mha program the associates The Bachelor so I I think one of the questions is are there any tips you have for people who are managing family responsibilities managing you know trying to survive in in in a challenging you know economic environment you know working full-time and then also going to school and it's not just about going to school right it's also about going to school for that many years in a row that you were able to do is there any tips you have yes so you know a lot of people said why did you keep going to school like why didn't you just give up I you know and to me was listen I'm already invested there's no point on going back but honestly it's because I always tell people life is not a race life is a marathon on and you can compare your definition of success to other people's definition of success I mean you know you don't know what barriers or obstacles another person is facing you don't you know when you think about Equity everybody has a different thing that's holding them back or a challenge so you have to kind of be your own motivational person and saying how can I overcome this if you come from a m a mentality where you're a victim you're not going to get things done you need to come with a mentality of how do I overcome right be resilient have grit don't quit on a bad day so this I heard from Angela Dorth you need to quit on a quit on a good day right what means by that right like you're like what do you mean quit but what she means by that is get to where you want to be and then if you don't want to do it no more that's fine then quit you know this is not what you want to do then that's totally fine but sometimes we are so keen on like we need to get done by two years I need to be this and two years I need to be that you don't have to be I mean you know lateral movements and you got to enjoy life I mean there was this's this poem that that goes I was dying and I think I read it one like the school like and this is why I love like this the testes they give you when you're in school because I learned something new during the tesses but it was like I was dying you know I was dying to graduate school I was dying to get married I was dying to have kids I was dying for my kids to grow up I was dying for a promotion and then I was dying to retired and then I was just dying and by that you forget how to live so you know like do it at your own pace understand how much can you do right and then if you look at it like if you look at it from a bigger scope you're going to be like oh my God this is too much this is overwhelming but if you look at it more of like by steps right like okay or or if you play video games right you like you look at it by challenges so it's like okay this is just level one and then now I beat level one and leave level two and you notice that if you're able to overcome that one time you can do it again and I always tell people listen life gives you the test and then you get the lesson so like what is it that you're learning from this life test right maybe you're learning about grit maybe you're learning about the importance of of relationships or maybe you're learning the what can you do like what do you need help with what do you need to do you know what skills can you get better even your emotional intelligence so for me yes it was eight years of school thankfully I liked school and I would love to go back so one of my goals is to get doctorate I was gonna ask you that actually because I feel like you're the the exact type of person I would love to see get a doctor at oh thank you thank you it means a lot you know um definitely will keep you in notice of when I start that Journey but yes I want to get a doctorate I think I bring this back valuable skill sets and this knowledge that I love to share with people I mean as a mentor um is one of the best things I got from school of like learning the the the the information teaching it to others and presenting on it so you know like I said don't look at school or something you got to just check the box um one of the things that our CEO said is education your your degree is like a passport it just gets you into the country and he's absolutely right what you decide to with that education is up to you you know you got to enjoy it I mean that's the best part of the the eight years in my school I got to meet other people I got to collaborate on projects I got to meet wonderful professors and even the four years that it took me to Do complete my masters that four years was me meeting a lot of people at HRA me uh you know learning from the best teachers I could find great mentors developing a really good relationship with one of my professors who's a great mentor to me so you know it's not just check the box okay I'm in school give me a job no it's it's more of like what can I really take from this education and where can I apply it to my job and my life and I want to ask about that because you know modern day a lot of people uh do not work while they're in school a lot of them choose to do school full-time that's probably the most common approach but I want to ask do you feel like there are advantages strong advantages to finishing your Master's and then also having that 11 years of work experience so yes there are advantages because there's many times where I was um in class during my master's program where I would bring my experiences of working um to the classroom where I would talk about why is it important for for you to have what is it to to what is it to like there's the surgical wipes right I'll give you an example there's there's these surgical wipes that you have to use to to clean where you're going to have your body for when you're going to have surgery right there's an importance to that but understanding that importance of by working next to the patient's fat side you're not going to learn by being inside a classroom so you know one of the things I tell people is like yes you want to dedicate your life to studying it's very important I would even say that to my son I wouldn't want him working uh full-time at the same time I was going to school because there's times where you prioritize money over the classroom but you know and take it from someone who's kind of dealt with that too right because again you know I have to pay bills but what I do want to advise people is at least get your experience one of the things I've heard people say is like well how do I get experience when never having experience right this is the conversation of now and something that makes it hard when you're trying to find a job is you need you have this opportunity that you're a student you have this room to fail meaning that you can go and talk to people and say Hey listen I'm really interested interested in this um department where you guys are working I I have this passion and I'm I'm currently working is there any projects allowed that you would love to have somebody help with right you don't have to intern there if you don't want to but like just having that exposure to a project not only gives you the skills it also helps you um create a relationship with a team it helps you learn from a from a leader a manager and then if there's any opportunities for you after you finish your program guess what you already have a place to to um to work if that's where you want to be but if that's not it guess what you have also a connection with a manager so you have now a sponsor which means that if you're going for another job within that area or that Network that person can sponsor you so it is a good thing to have these things done like you don't have to work 100% of like full-time hours but just get yourself out there to get projects get skills apply those skills because if you don't use them you're going to lose them you're going to forget how to do them and one of the ways that I personally learned how to you know how to use those skills was by applying them somewhere right if I wanted you could learn excel at school but it's not until you're like applying Exel when you're like oh my God what am I doing you realize that these skills you know how like oh I learned this in class now I know how to do X Y and Z so I think that's very very important yeah that is really good advice I I found that very true as well so so um excuse me I really appreciate you you saying that you did decide to do an administrative Fellowship despite a lot of experience why did you decide to do the fellowship and and what how did it present itself to you at northwell so the reason why I decided to do an administrative Fellowship was because one um coming from northwell and working here for about 11 years and about to finish a master's program I felt that the organization had invested in me so much right they gave me they gave me the opportunity to go to school they gave me the opportunities to have mentorship and be involved with the employee resource groups that I felt that I had skills that I could bring back to them and and really help with leadership uh I thought that I could be an advocate for the people we work with right like when people see when you know like when you when you see a brand right do you does somebody ever come to you for that brand so it's the same thing with me I wanted people to see the value of North Pole and like how how do we invest in our team members so um when I was given actually the opportunity to to apply I told my mentor at the time I'm like hey I'm applying for this fellowship program and and the first thing she goes is like you know that's very competitive right and I'm like yeah I I've heard but I'm like but why not you know like I I think I you know I have a chance and I also saw as a networking opportunity I mean you get to be 30 minutes with a a high level senior leader or God knows who you're going to meet why not so I usually joke and I say uh ignorance is a bliss but it really is in this sense it is because um you know I I definitely came in with that whole what if they don't pick me but then it was like but what if they do and now I'm one of those that has become I rather sleep all at night knowing that I tried than living my life full of regret right like you know I always tell people let them tell you no don't tell yourself no because you never know what if if they you know and always picture like what is the worst case scenario that they could do for you and if it's something like they're just not going to respond or they're not going to you know think about you or anything then okay that's fine you know um I always tell people if you have rejection sensitivity right challenge the thought sometimes we think it's worse in our heads than it really is in real life so when I applied for the ministry Fellowship I went in with a full heart of I can do this uh motivate myself I had my boyfriend supporting me I had my friends supporting me my mentor supporting me and I said you know it's up to where I get you know if I if if I get a little bit that's fine if I get a lot that's fine will it change my life most likely yes um but is this going to Define how far I've come no it's not I'm used to one of them that I've been an underdog many many times because people think that I can't do something and it's kind of my favorite when they say that because then I go well no I I can I look at what I've done before right like you reminded me all the stuff that I went through and I can do it again so I think that's very um I think that's important right I think um you know let somebody tell you no obviously if I were to say what would you do differently uh if you were to reapply for fellowships I would say may Network better reach out to people ask them about their Fellowship experience I would say read about all the different programs there's so many Fellowship opportunities in throughout the whole uh country I mean I've seen something for like the government I thought that was pretty cool so there's many many ways of you getting your education and getting the opportunities but ultimately it's it's networking I think if you don't Network then you're not work right either you network or network so okay great advice and and and you of course you got in you completed you know a year and a little extra now of the fellowship and you're applying for for positions H how did the fellowship train you do feel well prepared so you know the fellowship prepares you in working with uh high level leaders so you're building those relationships and then they give the opportunities to be involved with high level projects and these projects you get to apply for whatever job role you're going to end up next right so you um some of the things that I worked on is market analysis project management um and then you also getting your opportunity to see other areas within the organizations right so you get to see um oh my God you get to see like different departments right so if you want to work inside a hospital you want to work ambulatory or you want to work um corporate so you kind of get that experience and you develop that Network and then honestly like I said right like Michael ding that your education is just your passport what you do with it is up to you so one of the things I've done personally is also become an advocate for patients there was times where I met certain patients that needed help and I was able to go and listen to what they needed and then connect them to the right resources so become a facilitator I also became a great networker um you know like before I tell people I'm very shy and people tell me that's a lie I'm like no no no no believe me it's true um so I've been able to overcome that fear of networking of meeting new people because I felt that somebody's depending on me to do this and that helped me as well so and thankfully because of that we were able to make a friend group of all the New York fellows and it was because again it's shine Theory are we better off as collaborators or than competitors so there's times where we motivate each other we we share best practices and knowledge so I think that's very important so you know you could do a fellowship wherever you decide to they will give you the hard skills you need and some of the soft skills but it's really up to you what you define that Fellowship to be for you thank you so much Katherine for sharing this and really excellent advice appreciate you taking time out of your lunch to come on and talk about this I'm very inspired from everything that you've shared I'm sure that the audience is going to be for probably many years as they've read this and listen to this story so I really couldn't be more appreciative no thank you for this wonderful opportunity I'm truly grateful that you wanted to talk to me and I get to share this knowledge with people I mean as someone who advocates for mentorship and and getting advice I always love when people reach out and they ask me because I like to invest in people I like to see what their put potential as for greatest goodness and I think you're doing amazing Co thank you for creating this program and for really doing this for a lot of people who want to ask but they're too afraid so you're doing great and thank you again for thinking of me</p>