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This is the Becker's Healthcare Podcast,

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created by the team of
Becker's Healthcare,

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a multimedia company devoted to
the people who power us healthcare.

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Four new 15 minute episodes are released
daily containing industry news analysis

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and thought leadership.

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From powerful healthcare decision makers
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Thanks for listening.
Now here's the episode.

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Welcome everyone, to the
Becker's Healthcare podcast
series. I'm Ryan Mohammed,

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writer and moderator with Becker Selfcare.

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I'm absolutely thrilled to have
with me today Dr. Gira Jenkins,

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chief Medical Officer at the Native
American Health Center. Doctor,

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it's very nice to have you on
the podcast today. How are you?

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Good. I'm doing well.
Thank you for bragging me.

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Of course, of course. Glad to have
you here. And to get us started,

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would you mind please
introducing yourself,

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telling us a bit about your
background and organization?

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Yeah, I'm, uh, and Dr. George Jenkins.

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I am the Chief Medical Officer at
Native American Health Center. Uh,

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originally from the Detroit,
uh, Michigan AR area.

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I went to Michigan for
undergraduate school, uh,

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majored in biochemistry and thought I
was actually gonna do, uh, research.

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I I left and moved to New York City
where I, uh, went to Columbia and did a,

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a master's in biotechnology. And then, um,

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I also did a master's in
biomedical informatics,

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so I actually have two
master's from there. Um,

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and then the economy was bad and
I wasn't sure what I was gonna do.

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I actually took my MCATs and, um,
thought I would apply to medical school,

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and I got into, um, a handful,
uh, Vanderbilt University
of being one of them.

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So I moved to Vanderbilt in Nashville,
Tennessee. Had a wonderful time,

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a lot of work, met some great
friends. Um, and then finally wasn't,

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still wasn't sure if I actually
went to practice medicine,

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so actually moved to San Francisco
and did research at UCSF.

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I did a post-doctorate degree,
uh, or training I should say, um,

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at UCSF in pharmacogenomics, um,

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before I got some great life advice to
practice medicine. And now I currently,

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um, work as a primary care doctor at
Native American Health Center. Um,

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but before that, I also did, uh, uh,

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I worked as a hospitalist physician for
about seven years at, at Sutter Health.

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Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much
for, um, giving us that background.

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I'm currently in New York, so I love
how we have that similarity. Um,

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so Doctor, yeah, so doctor, uh,

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for the first real question
of today's interview,

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the first thing I wanted to ask you is,

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can you tell me about your most successful
project or initiative from the last

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year? What issues were you trying to
solve and also what drove the success?

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Yeah, I would say that, um,

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one of the big projects from
last year was trying to,

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and I'm just gonna be honest, it was
really trying to, uh, meet the budget and,

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and, and not take care of provider
and hire providers. So, um,

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those were the two big, I would say,
kind of challenges. But those were also,

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uh,

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and I consider them projects because on
one hand I needed to get the appropriate

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staff, identify the right people, hire
the right people, train the right people,

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and then have them work on
task with me, which was, Hey,

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we need to provide the
best care possible for the,

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for the patients that we're gonna see.
And if there's questions, you know,

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talk to myself or, um, the medical
director, what have you about doing that.

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So for, for myself, it was really
about, um, getting the best staff and,

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and training them for that. Um, we
were under immense pressure, uh,

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because our budget number did
not look good, and there was, um,

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considering talks of like,
you know, what we need to do,

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do we need to cut staff
or this or that? Um,

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but what I told the providers is
just focus what's in front of you,

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and the person that's in front of
you is the patient. So focus on that,

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and then I'll take the stress and
worry about the other stuff, um,

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with the finance team or CFO or what
have you. So, um, through doing that,

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we actually did, did very well.

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And by taking some of the pressure off
of the providers and just having them

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focus on what they really needed
to do, which is patient care, uh,

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we were really successful, um, in that
particular project. And also still,

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um, they helped me then, um, you know,

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reach out and refer other,
other providers, which is great.

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'cause especially in this day and
age, it's, it's difficult. Um,

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it's difficult to do that. So
I just wanted to, you know,

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give a shout out to my team at Native
American Health Center and all the great,

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uh, providers and other staff
that we have to help support.

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Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so
much for giving us that insight.

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And you touched on it a bit,
but I'm sure you already know,

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the clinical workforce has changed
a lot in the last few years.

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What challenges are you still facing and
how do you see the clinical workforce

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evolving?

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Yeah, great question. Um,
yeah, I, I think myself,

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as many of the people probably who are
listening to this podcast or on this

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podcast, um, it's really staffing.
And I think that since the,

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the pandemic, um, you know,

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it's been really hard to get good people.

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And even if you do get good people,
because there's limitations, um,

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you know, certain people get
trained and then it's like, okay,

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they're trained and they're gonna
move to a higher paying job,

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or they wanna go to a place
that's less expensive.

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One of the things I think
right now is as a healthcare,

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how are we gonna solve that? Um,

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how are we gonna work with
like local government?

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How are we gonna work with
state agencies? And even too,

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for those people who work, um,
more with the government side,

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how do we solve those
staffing issues and are there,

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is there a way that we could do
something to make things easier?

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And so one of the thoughts that
comes to mind is alternative payment.

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That's something that
comes up in California.

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I'm not gonna go into
that right now. But, um,

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just thinking outside the box and how
we can deliver care more efficiently,

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more effectively, um,

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with the limited resources and
sometimes limited training that, um,

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we had may have for, um,
individuals, um, there.

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So that's something that's on my mind
and something that I'm still working on

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and working with my,
my leadership team on.

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Wonderful. Thank you so much for
giving us that insight. And Doctor,

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before I let you go, the last
thing I wanted to ask you is,

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what is your best advice for
aspiring physician and nurse leaders?

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Yeah, I think that, you
know, I, I wasn't really,

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myself wasn't trying to aspire
to be a leader. Um, I just,

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uh,

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I just followed opportunities that I
thought worked best or things that were

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interesting to me. So, um, with that
being said, if someone who's like,

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I wanna be like CMO, I want to be a
medical director, you can absolutely,

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um, get on the path and kind
of work your way up the ladder.

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But one of the pieces of advice I would
give is, um, you know, don't, you know,

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uh, go in with just, uh, blinds and not
looking to see what else is out there.

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So as I mentioned earlier,
I actually started as a,

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as a hospitalist when I first came out
of my residency. And my thing was like,

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okay, I'm gonna work as a hospitalist,
but I realized that there's difficulty,

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you know, with people getting readmitted.

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So that led me to look at
outpatient medicine, and from that,

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I actually became a medical director
and then subsequently promoted or, or,

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you know, asked to become ACMO. So
I didn't plan that by any means. Um,

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and it wasn't my plan to begin with,
but one of the things I tell, um,

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young adults or young leaders is,
you know, look at the whole picture,

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have a plan in mind, but be willing
to accept that, you know, you only,

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you're probably only 66% of
that's gonna come to fruition,

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and the other 33% is just fate,
and you have to be okay with that.

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So that's what I, things I
would, I would say to, um,

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both the physician
leaders, nursing leaders,

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and even other people who are just getting
started in their career and thinking

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about what they want to do and
that related to their, their,

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their choices in life in healthcare.

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Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much
for those final thoughts, doctor.

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This has been an amazing and
informative discussion. So again,

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I wanna thank you so much for
coming on Becker's Healthcare.

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I look forward to connecting
with you again soon.

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You're welcome. Thank you for the
time. Appreciate it. Have a great day.

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