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Welcome everyone, to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. I'm Ryan Mohammed,
writer and moderator with Becker Selfcare.
I'm absolutely thrilled to have with me today Dr. Gira Jenkins,
chief Medical Officer at the Native American Health Center. Doctor,
it's very nice to have you on the podcast today. How are you?
Good. I'm doing well. Thank you for bragging me.
Of course, of course. Glad to have you here. And to get us started,
would you mind please introducing yourself,
telling us a bit about your background and organization?
Yeah, I'm, uh, and Dr. George Jenkins.
I am the Chief Medical Officer at Native American Health Center. Uh,
originally from the Detroit, uh, Michigan AR area.
I went to Michigan for undergraduate school, uh,
majored in biochemistry and thought I was actually gonna do, uh, research.
I I left and moved to New York City where I, uh, went to Columbia and did a,
a master's in biotechnology. And then, um,
I also did a master's in biomedical informatics,
so I actually have two master's from there. Um,
and then the economy was bad and I wasn't sure what I was gonna do.
I actually took my MCATs and, um, thought I would apply to medical school,
and I got into, um, a handful, uh, Vanderbilt University of being one of them.
So I moved to Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee. Had a wonderful time,
a lot of work, met some great friends. Um, and then finally wasn't,
still wasn't sure if I actually went to practice medicine,
so actually moved to San Francisco and did research at UCSF.
I did a post-doctorate degree, uh, or training I should say, um,
at UCSF in pharmacogenomics, um,
before I got some great life advice to practice medicine. And now I currently,
um, work as a primary care doctor at Native American Health Center. Um,
but before that, I also did, uh, uh,
I worked as a hospitalist physician for about seven years at, at Sutter Health.
Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much for, um, giving us that background.
I'm currently in New York, so I love how we have that similarity. Um,
so Doctor, yeah, so doctor, uh,
for the first real question of today's interview,
the first thing I wanted to ask you is,
can you tell me about your most successful project or initiative from the last
year? What issues were you trying to solve and also what drove the success?
Yeah, I would say that, um,
one of the big projects from last year was trying to,
and I'm just gonna be honest, it was really trying to, uh, meet the budget and,
and, and not take care of provider and hire providers. So, um,
those were the two big, I would say, kind of challenges. But those were also,
uh,
and I consider them projects because on one hand I needed to get the appropriate
staff, identify the right people, hire the right people, train the right people,
and then have them work on task with me, which was, Hey,
we need to provide the best care possible for the,
for the patients that we're gonna see. And if there's questions, you know,
talk to myself or, um, the medical director, what have you about doing that.
So for, for myself, it was really about, um, getting the best staff and,
and training them for that. Um, we were under immense pressure, uh,
because our budget number did not look good, and there was, um,
considering talks of like, you know, what we need to do,
do we need to cut staff or this or that? Um,
but what I told the providers is just focus what's in front of you,
and the person that's in front of you is the patient. So focus on that,
and then I'll take the stress and worry about the other stuff, um,
with the finance team or CFO or what have you. So, um, through doing that,
we actually did, did very well.
And by taking some of the pressure off of the providers and just having them
focus on what they really needed to do, which is patient care, uh,
we were really successful, um, in that particular project. And also still,
um, they helped me then, um, you know,
reach out and refer other, other providers, which is great.
'cause especially in this day and age, it's, it's difficult. Um,
it's difficult to do that. So I just wanted to, you know,
give a shout out to my team at Native American Health Center and all the great,
uh, providers and other staff that we have to help support.
Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much for giving us that insight.
And you touched on it a bit, but I'm sure you already know,
the clinical workforce has changed a lot in the last few years.
What challenges are you still facing and how do you see the clinical workforce
evolving?
Yeah, great question. Um, yeah, I, I think myself,
as many of the people probably who are listening to this podcast or on this
podcast, um, it's really staffing. And I think that since the,
the pandemic, um, you know,
it's been really hard to get good people.
And even if you do get good people, because there's limitations, um,
you know, certain people get trained and then it's like, okay,
they're trained and they're gonna move to a higher paying job,
or they wanna go to a place that's less expensive.
One of the things I think right now is as a healthcare,
how are we gonna solve that? Um,
how are we gonna work with like local government?
How are we gonna work with state agencies? And even too,
for those people who work, um, more with the government side,
how do we solve those staffing issues and are there,
is there a way that we could do something to make things easier?
And so one of the thoughts that comes to mind is alternative payment.
That's something that comes up in California.
I'm not gonna go into that right now. But, um,
just thinking outside the box and how we can deliver care more efficiently,
more effectively, um,
with the limited resources and sometimes limited training that, um,
we had may have for, um, individuals, um, there.
So that's something that's on my mind and something that I'm still working on
and working with my, my leadership team on.
Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving us that insight. And Doctor,
before I let you go, the last thing I wanted to ask you is,
what is your best advice for aspiring physician and nurse leaders?
Yeah, I think that, you know, I, I wasn't really,
myself wasn't trying to aspire to be a leader. Um, I just,
uh,
I just followed opportunities that I thought worked best or things that were
interesting to me. So, um, with that being said, if someone who's like,
I wanna be like CMO, I want to be a medical director, you can absolutely,
um, get on the path and kind of work your way up the ladder.
But one of the pieces of advice I would give is, um, you know, don't, you know,
uh, go in with just, uh, blinds and not looking to see what else is out there.
So as I mentioned earlier, I actually started as a,
as a hospitalist when I first came out of my residency. And my thing was like,
okay, I'm gonna work as a hospitalist, but I realized that there's difficulty,
you know, with people getting readmitted.
So that led me to look at outpatient medicine, and from that,
I actually became a medical director and then subsequently promoted or, or,
you know, asked to become ACMO. So I didn't plan that by any means. Um,
and it wasn't my plan to begin with, but one of the things I tell, um,
young adults or young leaders is, you know, look at the whole picture,
have a plan in mind, but be willing to accept that, you know, you only,
you're probably only 66% of that's gonna come to fruition,
and the other 33% is just fate, and you have to be okay with that.
So that's what I, things I would, I would say to, um,
both the physician leaders, nursing leaders,
and even other people who are just getting started in their career and thinking
about what they want to do and that related to their, their,
their choices in life in healthcare.
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much for those final thoughts, doctor.
This has been an amazing and informative discussion. So again,
I wanna thank you so much for coming on Becker's Healthcare.
I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
You're welcome. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it. Have a great day.
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