The Rush University Medical Center Administrative Fellowship with Avianna Aguilar

<p>I would say to always put your best foot forward always try to network as much as possible networking is so [Music] important hi everyone it's rangi sha with the fellowship review through the American Journal of healthcare strategy today I am so excited to be joined by Avana agular Avana thanks for coming on the show and why don't you kick it off by telling our guests a little bit about yourself yeah thank you for having me um thanks everyone um for being on and listening um my name is Avana I went to the Ohio State University and got my Bachelor's of Science in pharmaceutical Sciences um after completing that I went to University of Illinois Chicago to receive my master of healthcare administration and I went on to do a fellowship at Russ University Medical Center where I still continue to work That's so exciting um so let's kind of take it back I I'd love to know a little bit more about your educational Journey so you said you were in the pharmaceutical Sciences so um did you have an intention to go into Pharmacy originally and you know what kind of made you pivot from that background to getting a master's in health admin yeah um that was the original plan in high school I had always said that I wanted to be a pharmacist I I worked in a pharmacy in high school as well so that kind of prepared me a little bit um about like what I was getting into an undergrad um undergrad was fully like all stem classes and really prepared me for even if I wanted to go to like med school or you know optometry school or anything like that it was a good program to like set you up for professional school and once I got to be about like sophomore year I remember in class one of my one of my professors showed us like the growth of like the pharmacy like a pharmacist like career-wise the career growth for a pharmacist and it just wasn't as like it was kind of horizontal and I kind of took that as like okay maybe this is not a career that I can like see myself growing and evolving um and I knew I wanted to have some type of leadership um role in any in any area that I chose and I had a minor in leadership studies so that really like fueled me um and I knew that I could do a specific residency in Pharmacy to you know um to get like a master of science in leadership um but I kind of thought like might as well just if I'm not at that interested in Pharmacy anymore might as well just not go to pharmacy school and kind of just pivot straight into healthcare administration yeah absolutely and I think that's the beauty of our field right A lot of people pivot in undergrad from other medical backgrounds oftentimes Premed sometimes it's physical therapy that's one that I've heard a lot so I appreciate you highlighting kind of um you know that you had a plan from high school and you kind of re-evaluated it seems when it came time to college and realize that maybe it wasn't in alignment with the life you envisioned for yourself but that's the great thing about our master's degree um it's you know you can Rel you can pivot pretty easily from other fields so thank you for sharing that um of course you did your master's program but one of the cool experiences that you know we chatted about a little before this is the fact that you got to be a resident at Northwestern which of course is an incredible health system and I believe you were in the clinical quality and patient safety department so can you please tell our listeners um you know just what that experience was like um if you want to highlight one of your favorite parts of that residency and also any projects that you may have completed yeah my time in Northwestern was absolutely amazing I had a great preceptor um she was a clinical quality leader for Women's Health so Obi um like Peds even so anything related to women's health and that was that was great for like on a personal level to have as as like a mentor and a preceptor but also one of my main projects that I worked on from like beginning of the um reny to the end was creating a social determinance of Health screener for the Northwestern private practices who didn't use epic so some of the smaller practices that were affil so affiliated with Northwestern um trying to work with their um it Department to you know implement this scener um and then also kind of working with the providers to show like how important this is and it was part of the Illinois per perinatal um quality of cares um one of their like goals so that was really um cool to work on and see all the all that all the way through I also worked on some I kind of gotten pulled into like different directions because I was interested in all of like quality and safety so I remember when I worked with both the the clinical quality leaders for surgery I looked at data to see um why certain why cases um like why patients were wait waiting longer than 24 hours to get admitted to the O if they had some type of emergent case so that was really cool to sift through the data and like doing chart reviews and kind of understanding more of like providers lens and like what could be blocking um patients from getting seen at a more appropriate time yeah sounds like a really rewarding um experience and I love that you highlighted that you had a good preceptor um internships I think really set the stage for um successful postgrad job interviews or Fellowship interviews and so with that I want to kind of transition to the fellowship process right um I'm sure after graduation you had a lot of options and a lot of different directions you could go in whether it was a job a fellowship Consulting um what specifically made you pick the fellow so although I had a great experience at Northwestern I didn't really see quality um for myself long term also because all the leaders were clinical leaders and I'm you know don't have a clinical background so I had to think more realistically about like a future career path um so I kind of I mean I didn't I always said like I didn't know what I didn't know back then so I knew that a fellowship would kind of give me like would open my eyes to the different facets of the healthcare organization because I kind of just thought like okay well I know clinical quality and patient safety but there's also like operations and like project management um and those are kind of like the the words that I heard around my program um but I knew I wanted to explore more and you know doing the fellowship I was exposed to way more different departments and areas um that I wouldn't have been exposed to without it yeah absolutely and exposure and access are big parts of the fellowship I think experience but I I want to dig a little bit deeper into the specifics of your application cycle you know um what kind of helped you stay on track you know how many places did you end up applying to and um what would you say kind of made you pick the fellowship site at the end of the day why did you pick Rush yeah um so I applied to five organizations I knew I'm from Chicago so I knew I wanted to stay in Chicago and I knew that I wanted to be at an um an AMC I liked the like the large culture that like Northwestern had and being tied to research and education so I kind of knew I wanted to get that from any Fellowship experience and I kind of I know like fellowships are difficult to apply to it takes a lot of time it's a lot of effort and I knew that I had to 100% like if I was going to be offered a position from one of these organizations that I knew I was going to accept like on the spot so that's kind of how I made the made a decision to only apply to like the select few that I would be over like over the moon accepting so that was my logic um I stayed on track by like keeping an Excel sheet of organized and organized all like all the sites and then like the requirements and the due dates and my my own due dates as well and for like letters of wreck and all those components for the application so that really helped me stay on track um I was also in school and working so I kind of had to just manage my time as best as I could um ultimately I you know I looked I was offered a few on-site um interviews and I just thought about where I see myself longterm where I can grow where you know there's more um opportunities for growth um and I knew Rush was you know at the Forefront of the of like Community Health and you know working um with underserved communities and I knew that that was something that was really important to me and so I ultimately chose rush because of its Mission and um I had met some previous fellows and they had great experience so ultimately I knew it was going to be a good place for me to be yeah and and it definitely sounds like it because you uh stuck around and well um in your answer some of the things that you said that really resonated with me and I really want to highlight for our listeners that pay attention to these specific things I think I love the fact that you were Mindful and you said something along the lines of I wanted to make sure I was over the moon for receiving an offer from any of these sites this is something that is so important I think people need to realize that like a yes the fellowship process is competitive and it can be overwhelming but you want to be intentional you don't just want to apply anywhere and everywhere because it's you want to be aligned with the mission of the organization you want to enjoy the city that you're going to be in and so I just want to thank you for highlighting that um and it seemed like you had a pretty full plate with school and all your work and fellowship applications so it's incredible that you were able to land one um and so now let's talk about specifically the rush Fellowship for people who are interested in this Fellowship could you maybe tell us you know is it one year is it twoyear is it Project based is it rotation based and then also do you have co-fellows was it just you kind of what are the logistics around the fellowship yeah so just a little background about rush so Rush is like the main campus is Rush University Medical Center in like the lower west side of Chicago um and so there's also a community hospital in Oak Park so Rush Oak Park Hospital and then there's another Community um hospital and called rush cople in Aurora and so I um like so that's just a little bit about that so that right now when I was a fellow at least I had one co- fellow and but now that the program has expanded and Russia is more aligning and systemizing there's another fellow at rush Copley um so that's you know another opport and I know that the fellows work very closely together it is a Project based Fellowship it's a 12month program the first month and a half is rotating through the different areas meeting like directors and above and other other leaders from every area of the hospital um from supply chain to the corporate side so legal um risk um etc etc and then also rotating through um Rush has a lot of offsites so there's there's one in Monster Indiana there's one in Oakbrook there's one in South Loop um the list goes on so we rotated through the different sites as well to meet those leaders um and so that you know that allows just for more opportunity for you know projects and then you kind of vet your projects with your executive sponsor and see which ones um kind of align with the Strategic initiatives that Russia is you know putting out for that fiscal year and also seeing like what you will what you can gain from being on that project yeah absolutely that that sounds like a great opportunity and and I love that you have um co-fellows and you have the opportunity to see other campuses um can you speak a little bit to what mentorship is like for fellows do you have a direct preceptor or do you kind of have mentors across the health system and and specifically what was your experience in mentorship yeah so we do have an executive sponsor who is the EVP of like rush and under under him um there is a fellowship director so she wasn't necessarily my preceptor like she didn't oversee my projects but she oversaw My overall like scope of project my bandwidth you know deliverables um just to like keep me on track and make sure that I was getting as much out of the fellowship and if I was having a difficult time like I come to her um about how to navigate through those difficult times and so my preceptors were like the directors or like sometimes AP or VP level on a project so I kind of gave mentors through the projects that I was working on I actually have I remember when my fellowship was over I gave like G small gifts to like five of my like top mentors because they like I wrote them cards because they like their um like leadership really meant a lot to me so you know and there were different levels one was a director one was a SVP one was a VP one was a chair of a you know a department so um I kind of just kind of built those relationships just with working so closely with them and I'm happy that you know they chose to Mentor me as well yeah absolutely and and I think mentorship is such a big part like we chatted a little bit it's such a big part of the fellowship I think good mentors can really make your fellowship a very positive experience so thank you for sharing that um you know any projects from your fellowship that come to mind that really stuck out or you know maybe a favorite project that you did and you were very proud of yeah the one I talk about the most every time someone asks me um is I was the project manager for the opening of The Rush Specialty Hospital which is an impatient rehab um and spe language pathology hospital it's a joint venture between Select Medical and Rush um as you may know and um it was a great opportunity it was literally building you know a hospital from the ground up I was on the tail end of it um when I started my fellowship but I was still able to see the components that it takes to open a hospital from it and parking and who's who's paying for like you know um gardening and all of those things and also physician credentialing and ensuring we have the right services and the right um place and you know EVS food all those components that take to open up a hospital and so that was amazing experience I learned so much I literally knew nothing at the beginning and um luckily and at one point you know it I was kind of flown into things but then I was able to figure out like okay who can I go to to ask about this who can I follow up with this and then I kind of you know gained a couple mentors along the way through that project Alone um and it also just taught me so much about teamwork and just how everyone has to come together um and then you know take accountability for their part of the puzzle ultimately and then it was amazing to see the opening that was like this past April so it was a great event it was amazing and that's honestly the most memorable project and I I think it trumps all the other projects that I did even though the other ones were very great as well yeah yeah thank you for sharing what an incredible experience and you know um you stayed at rush so obviously there's a reason for that and and speaks to the caliber of the fellowship program being able to retain fellows um if they choose to stay and so tell me what do you do now what are kind of what's a day in the life of your current role and and what's like your favorite part of being in your current role yeah um I just wanted to preface that but when I was nearing the end of my fellowship probably more towards like 34s of the way of my completing my fellowship I solidified like what I really wanted to do and that was operations and strategy Business Development and so I knew that I I think operations there's just a lot more opportunity at rush as well just because we are you know there's a lot of clinical operations um in the many clinics that we have and so I decided to you know um go towards that route and so I I am an operation supervisor for plastic surgery gender affirming surgery and colal surgery so we're all I'm all under the department of surgery and I oversee the non-clinical operations so the front desk we call them clinical coordinators um I oversee a social worker for gender affirm and a patient navigator for gender affirm and that is just everything from template building and ensuring that like workflows are aligned um so that they know clinics are um running as efficiently as possible yeah yeah how incredible and and to provide that care um for uh your patient population thank you for sharing um and now kind of maybe two fun questions uh as we wrap up this part of the episode um you know looking back at your fellowship cycle of course you were super intentional about where you applied and you know the process but if you had advice to give to potential fellows um as they went through this cycle what would that advice be you know any key takeaways for you yeah I you know I would say to always put your best foot forward always try to network as much as possible networking is so important and I remember when I was applying for fellowships I am I am still pretty shy and reserved but I remember being so nervous to reach out to past fellows or and even people that worked at the organization that you're interested in and I wish I would have pushed myself more to do that I feel like I did it I felt like I did it because I had to do it but I I wish I was more intentional about like trying to build some type of rapport with them um because it can go a long way during the process like sometimes I remember when I was reviewing applications last year like oh I remember meeting that person like I remember talking about this with that person so you know making an impression a good impression on you know um people because you never know who's going to review your application or be interviewing you at some point and so I wish that's something that I wish you know I hope that listeners take take away from this um is just to network as much as possible it's no there's no issue with like asking questions um you just have to go about it the right way yeah yeah absolutely thank you and and now I want to ask probably my favorite question as someone who's been to Chicago um tons and tons of times I would say in my opinion Chicago is such a great City but I want our listeners to hear from you someone who actually lives there um and gets to experience Chicago year round you know um for people that are considering this Fellowship who may not be familiar you know what's your favorite thing about uh the city of Chicago um what would you want to share with our listeners yeah very underrated I feel like when people talk about like Chicago food I would say honestly go to like for like go for Mexican food Mexican food like there's so like Chicago has one of the highest Mexican populations in the US and so please do not skip out on the meic food go to pson go to Little Village go to like the more lowkey spots um and I can give you names if you want to reach out to me after this um because those are very underrated and it's like those hole in the wall places that like Chicago isn't always known for yes absolutely no Chicago is such a gem and you know um I've also enjoyed so much having you on today I think this will really open up the doors for people to look into the rush fellowship if they weren't going to prior to this so I just want to thank you again for coming on the show and sharing your experience and your journey yeah thank you so much for having me it a great</p>