Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Gerard Jenkins, Chief Medical Officer at Native American Health Center

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Gerard Jenkins, Chief Medical Officer at Native American Health Center · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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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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  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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