Profile Paper

Misty Gonzales

Jennifer Schaller

English 1101-126

11 April 2014

Jane of All Trades or More Than a Woman

“If I am doing my job correctly, then you don’t really notice me, when I am not there, that is when you feel it.” Dawn Winters explains to me about her behind the scenes role. “I have always liked to be the support person in the background; I’m here to do my job so that those around her can do theirs.” She has worked in several places as what she calls ‘support staff’. She has always believed in being a team player, not that it minimizes her contribution, but she prefers to do that behind the scenes. “Even in high school, I was in Stage Craft, we built the stages, obviously, but on show nights, we helped with costume changes and lighting, all of the things that you don’t notice are going right, but you sure notice if they are going wrong!”, Dawn explains.

Her first job after she got divorced was as the ‘book-lady’ at a local thrift store, and her favorite part of that job was helping customers find the books they were looking for. She jokes with me that her O.C.D. came in handy in getting the books organized. “When I started there, no one was taking care of the books, just shelving them, I was lucky that there was somewhat of a children’s section. When I got the books in shape, I had everything sorted by genre and author. All copies of a book were together, and I always knew where something was if we had it in stock. I even started a ‘wish list’- if someone wanted something we did not have, I would take their name and number and call them if it came in.” The store’s book profits increased 200% over what they were before she started. You can tell she is proud of this. She was invited by the regional manager to go to other stores in the region and train their book managers on her ‘technique’. She went to the Mesa Arizona store, but the book person there was less than open to her suggestions. Soon after she decided that she needed to find a better paying job, minimum wage is not enough to support a family. She needed a career, not a job.” (Winters)

Dawn always wanted to be a secretary. As a child, she played ‘office’ with her sister and stepbrothers. She knew she wanted to find something in this arena, but had no idea where to start, so she went to CNM to see what an advisor could tell her. She was told that the health industry is always growing and that CNM offered a course on becoming a Health Unit Coordinator, or as they were called back in the day - Ward Clerk. “The advisor had me sold, and I started the 13 week course the following month.”  Dawn tells me. She learned terminology so that she could understand and enter doctor’s orders into the computer; she also learned to communicate with other departments in the hospital, to make sure that everything the unit had everything needed to run smoothly. “The main thing I took away from that class is the thing that I have always tried to live, and that is team work. We are all part of the team that is helping the patients; I just didn’t have to get blood on my hands, among other icky stuff” she jokes.

When Dawn started in the Health Unit Clerk world, she was a Night H.U.C. at Presbyterian Pediatric Intensive Care. “I like to tell people that I was like Radar from M.A.S.H., I kept the unit running like Radar kept the 4077^th running; every once in a while, I would even get to call out ‘CHOPPER! The way that the unit was set up, we overlooked the helicopter landing pad, and if we were expecting a patient, after I had done everything to prepare for that patient, I would be on the lookout for them to arrive.” A helicopter flying that close to the building to land is not easy to miss. “To keep that unit running, I would get the morning lab paperwork ready for all of the patients; I would take them around to each nurse’s stations so that the nurses would be ready to take care of their patients. I always saw myself as a tool that they had at their disposal so that they could do their job. If they don’t have to worry about getting paperwork done, then they can devote more time to their patient’s care.” Her voice and mood seem to change as she begins to talk about the downside of the P.I.C.U. “It was heart-breaking when we would lose a patient. Those poor kids lives were cut short, and the pain in their parents’ eyes - I related to that since I have three kids of my own.”

Eventually she left Presbyterian for UNMH’s award winning Medical / Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. She tells me “I really liked the MICU; it was much faster paced, so there was much more to do to keep it running. I learned a lot about assisting on that Unit.” The Unit Secretary, who was in charge of all of the day to day operations, took Dawn under her wing. She started training Dawn to be to be a night version of herself, without the pay increase – she had Dawn ordered supplies, do random testing and paperwork tracking among other tasks, Dawn did not mind. The way she saw it, the more that she could learn that was not patient care related the better!

Since UNMH is a teaching hospital, she did get to see and learn a lot, even though she had no interest in becoming a nurse. She also learned that the H.U.C job had become socially ‘genderized’ meaning that since not many males wanted to do this job, the way was seen as less important. Also, because it was a male dominated job, this meant that the pay was not the greatest (Conely 2013). She also learned that many people used this as an entry-level job into the hospital while they pursued their education to become a nurse. Having no desire to become a nurse, she realized that she would need to find another path eventually. (Winters)  

When the chance came to move out of the MICU and into an actual office setting, she jumped at it.She started working as the Inpatient Midlevel Office Supervisor in December 2010. “I started working days, got paid a little more, and I was on the path to the dream job I always wanted. However, there was no one really to teach me what exactly was called for in this role, as it was a brand new role.” For a while, during a transition period, Dawn did not really have a boss to answer to, so she decided to teach herself what she could, and ask for advice from her mentor, Mario, to learn what she could not teach herself. “In this time I was able to get everyone’s files cleaned up; I was able to set up many of the standard practices that we still use today for everything from Travel Requests to Influenza Vaccination Proof. Once again, my O.C.D. came to the rescue.” She has not been diagnosed with O.C.D., but as I myself work in the same field as her, I find myself in total agreement that a trait such as this comes in handy!

By the time that her new boss came into the position in late April of 2011, Dawn knew most of what she needed to know for the role as it was at that time. “It’s a good thing that I learned what I did, when Sue came in she never had any administrative experience, but she had a million ideas on how to make things better.” Dawn laughs. “She and I learned together and for a while it was the blind leading the blind. She knew some things and I knew others, together we looked like we knew what was going on.” Many changes have taken place in the three years since Dawn and Sue teamed. Their department went from having 22 Advanced Practice Advanced Practice Providers   to the whopping 76 that they have today, with 5 more hiring on over the summer months. We started with Advanced Practice Advanced Practice Providers   in only 5 units in the hospital, and now they are all over. Sue has done a lot to make the more visible, and more desirable to have on the floors and units in the hospital. Sue is the face of the department and she makes the moves that make these changes possible, but Dawn is there, behind the scenes, setting up appointments, making phone calls, and in general, just doing whatever Sue needs. Dawn likens it to a marathon – “Sue is the one running the race, but I picked out her shoes, I made sure she has sunscreen and I hand her water at every stop.”

“I really consider Sue my friend first and my boss second. We talk about our kids, our significant others, our crazy families and everything in between. She got my title changed not long after she started, I am now an ‘Executive Assistant’, which carries more responsibility, more prestige, and most importantly, more money. We are in the process of trying to get my job rewritten again, since I basically do two jobs. I support her, which is the Executive Assistant part, but I also do all of what a Department Coordinator does, everything from payroll to preparing for credentialing boards each month. Since this is a pioneer roll, I do not begrudge the fact that it is hard to nail my title down, and so too nail my pay grade down. We have gotten it fixed before; we will get it fixed again. I rather like being a pioneer though.” She smiles.  

Dawn called me last night to add something things to the interview: She wanted to share with me her fears that she is not as good at her job as people think that she is. She worries that people think that she knows things that she does not. She worries that her minute taking is not as good as it could be. She worries that someone will have a question for her someday that she will not have an answer for, or know how to get the answer. Her biggest fear is letting down her bosses and her Advanced Practice Advanced Practice Providers. Her biggest fear is that someday her job will be phased out and not only will she be out of a job, but her O.C.D. might be used for evil instead of good. I think that these fears are more common than Dawn realizes. I think that many of us fear these things in one way or another about whatever it is that we find important in our lives.

After having spent a day with Dawn, I think that her fears are unfounded, at least at work. I see the care that she puts into her job; I see the way that she scrutinizes all of the paperwork that comes across her desk. I have seen the extra miles she goes for her bosses and Advanced Practice Advanced Practice Providers   when they need something taken care of. “The way I see it, if I take care of the small details, they can go on saving lives, it’s simple really.”

Work Cited Page

Conely, Dalton. "Gender ." You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction To Thinking Like A Sociologist Third Edition. New York / London: W.W. Norton, 2013. . Print.

Dawn, Winters. Interview.