Alrighty here I go. I was born a small child...
When I started nursing was in the days of the ER TV show. I thought I wanted to work where the action was, but as a nursing assistant found out that the more serious the condition of the patient, the quicker they tend to get out of the ED. I did see some cool staff as it was a trauma center but had decided I'd work in the ICU instead. I loved the whole nerdy aspect of nursing where you knew what was happening inside a patient because of changes in lab results or other studies. The manager of the ICU I wanted told me as I was graduating from nursing school to work on a med/surg floor for a year to get my organizational skills down and then she would hire me. One of my clinical instructors told me she thought I'd be good in pediatrics and the rest is history. I started on a unit where we had patients from 1 week old to 18 years. Moved to change nurse. Then moved to the children's hospital at Stanford. Moved up to manager there, then switched gears to quality work in the company I'm with today. Started in general quality work, then became the Stroke Coordinator for the hospital. Then switched hospitals to the one closer to me and became director of the Quality Dept here. I tell people we basically make sure people are doing what they are supposed to do. The people who deal with all the privileging of physicians so they can work here are under me. We do a lot of audits exactly to make sure people are doing what they should be doing, and if they aren't, work with their departments to determine how to get them to do it. We investigate things when they happen or almost happen to see what we can change to reduce the chances of them happening again. Not just major things, but stuff like patient falls, infections like UTIs or pneumonia that start in the hospital, infections after surgery, etc. We house the processes to deal with complaints about medical care. And deal with surveys and surveyors when they show up. Among lots of other stuff. Best part of my job is I'm high selective of who gets hired so my team is all high performers. So I have plenty of time for cigar shopping.
