As I continued to learn what the role of Ambulatory Service Representative truly meant, I started to feel a strong sense of connection and purpose to this work. I felt like I was truly helping patients and families each and every day. I was the person they spoke to when their child was newly diagnosed with a complex neurological condition or when they had a baby still in the NICU and needed to schedule follow up care. I never knew what I was going to experience each day. I learned an incredible amount, from interacting with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds and with various access to resources, to the challenges with access and affordability of healthcare.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was speaking to a family over the phone multiple times to coordinate their care, especially when they were experiencing a scary diagnosis or were traveling from out of sate, and then getting to meet them in person when they came to the hospital. So many families remembered they spoke to me and thanked me for helping them. It was rewarding and I made it my personal mission to try to help as many people as possible and make the experience of going to the hospital, a place no one wants to go, the best experience possible.
I also had many frustrations. I learned about the challenges with trying to schedule a child with not only an out of state insurance, but even an in-state, but out of network insurance - the worst thing was telling a family that we couldn't see them. I learned about the cost of prescription medications and the difficulty in getting some of these medications authorized. I also learned about access to care and sometimes having to tell families that the next available appointment was 3 months away or that we needed to receive the outside medical records by fax before we could schedule.
I soon knew that I wanted to be in a position to make a change and impact the healthcare delivery system in some way. I knew in order to move up in the hospital, I'd have to go back to school and get an advanced degree. Going back to school full-time wasn't an option so I looked at part-time programs that would still allow me to work full-time.
I ended up getting accepted to the Boston University School of Public Health to pursue my Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management. In the fall of 2015, I started by taking 1 class (more on this class later) and after 3 years I graduated in the spring of 2018.
Throughout that time, I held a few different roles within Boston Children’s, which I plan to discuss in future posts because each role taught me something different that is still applicable to my work today.
To wrap-up the start of my Boston Children's experience (for now), I wanted to share the cover picture of this post, which is one of my favorite things at BCH. This was hanging in the main entrance area right above the musical stairs.
It says - "What inspires you to be unstoppable? To be your best?"
Post-it notes from staff, providers, patients and families were hanging all around it and I'd often walk by and read it for a little extra inspiration.