Personal Narrative: My Strengths In Health Care

Rummage (2011) shares an opinion that most people go through life without assessing oneself and the path we chose. For thirteen, of the last fourteen, years I worked at an acute care facility. I was successful which was demonstrated by several promotions over the years. Over the years, I thought about furthering my education but I told myself my long work hours prevented me from taking on the commitment. I believe this was an excuse and am confident the problem was I had not defined my career path. Historically, I labeled myself as an accountant and communicated the results of operations.

During my thirteen year tenure at the hospital I learned to love the business of health care. I truly love it and find the business fascinating

In may ways, some of my greatest strengths are my greatest weaknesses. I struggle with delegation, I do too much care taking of feelings and may not delegate sufficiently or push hard enough for results. Most importantly, I dislike disappointing others and I agree to do too much. This leaves me over tasked, and I am not sufficiently organized to manage it well because I struggle to delegate. While it is critical to my professional success to identify my key strengths and weaknesses with the intent to enhancement the positive and mitigate the negatives I think it's important for me to define what I want to do, in health care, before I can assess how best to tailor my action

My only experience in health care is in my community and I question what I've learned due to the general community culture of complacency. I also question how I lead a team towards change when they have more expertise in their micro-environments, even if out dated. The managers demonstrate an understanding, by the outward expressions of frustration, that the design of the infrastructure is in adequate. Yet, they do not appear ready to acknowledge that everyone needs to change, not just everyone around them. My initial assessment is they neither know how to change nor do they want to change.

This seven week experience leads me to ponder a leaders role in change. There are many approaches. Which fits with my personal ethics but also achieves results. My desire is to respect where the individuals are but I need to know how to help them move forward. I can wait and hope but it is antithetical to how I live because I believe in action. Mistakes can be corrected but if you never try to do something different, you will