Shontè Jenkins

The best career advice I ever received was from a lady at my church who mentors me. When I first walked into the management position, she told me that there's no traffic on the extra mile, and she left me with that. I didn't understand what it meant at first. I looked at her and said, I don't even know what that means. She always said, don't worry about it, one day you'll get it. It wasn't until I was up one night, frustrated because I felt like I was by myself trying to create all these processes and workflows, that it came back to me. I realized, okay, Shante, this is what you do. You always go above and beyond, you always take the extra mile, and not everybody does that. When I actually accepted that and realized that there's gonna be times where you're gonna be out here by yourself, that's when you tap into your passion and remember your why, and then that makes it easier to travel that extra mile by yourself. What used to make me stressed out and want to grab a drink, I no longer go that way mentally, because I know that this is the extra mile, this is what I do, there's not gonna be many people that do what you do. You're gonna have nights by yourself like last night, and that's okay, because you will get rewarded in the end, because this is your passion. I know what I do makes a difference. That advice would be what I'd give to anyone: whenever you do come across hard times, whenever you do feel like you're by yourself, just remember that there's no traffic on the extra mile. Keep going that extra mile, keep doing what you're doing, don't change, don't stop, don't quit, because you're making a difference for people that you don't even know. You could save someone's life.

Don't be intimidated by the fast pace, because healthcare is very fast-paced. Don't let it intimidate you. Make sure that you come with a hunger and make sure it's your passion, for one. That's one of the things that really grinds my gears - people that work in healthcare just for a check. I always say healthcare is work of the heart. I actually have that on my badge too. If it's not a passion of yours, if you aren't in it for the right reasons, don't get in it. Don't get in it just to get a check. Get in it for the right reasons, because there's going to be days where you will probably dislike your job, and sometimes even the patients or whoever you deal with, because you'll come across some really nasty people. Just make sure that this is your passion and this is what you want to do. Don't let the fast pace intimidate you. Sometimes people that have been in this field for a while can be very intimidating to people just coming in, so don't let anyone intimidate you. Do your research. Be knowledgeable of the field that you're in. Try and get someone that could mentor you, whether it's just another nurse, or like I became really close with the director of nursing here, and she's been a great mentor for me throughout my whole career here at the hospital. Make sure it's your passion, don't get intimidated, and make sure you are knowledgeable of what you're in, like your career. Make sure you're knowledgeable of it, because you'll do a great job if you have those three things.

One of the biggest challenges is keeping up, to be honest, now that we have this AI and all of these robotic automation features. It's really hard to keep up, but to also keep people engaged in their job, because they're now competing with a bot, so to speak. As a manager, it's challenging to make sure that your team still feels comfortable and doesn't feel like they're dispensable because of all of the changes in healthcare and the automation and the cutting costs. That's the biggest challenge that I am facing right now, just trying to find that happy medium between utilizing the automation, but also keeping my team in high spirits as well. Before we implemented our authorization bot, the girls on my team were doing like 20 to 30 authorizations a day, about 120 authorizations in an 8-hour day. I have a bot that can do 300 in 2 hours. That is very intimidating for my team. They're like, okay, Shante, is our jobs in jeopardy? So I constantly have to motivate them and tell them, hey, no, I fought to keep people, because the top people are like, let's cut costs. I have to fight and be like, no, we can't put all our eggs in a basket with technology, because if something happens, we are screwed. You're gonna need manpower if anything happens to the automation. We've had hiccups, and senior leadership has seen, like, oh, okay, no, we need people. The bot can only do what we tell it to do. We've had situations where the portal has changed, and if anything changes, the bot has a hard stop. Reprogramming the bot doesn't happen in like an hour. It takes at least a business day, sometimes two. If you don't want to have lost revenue, that's where your manpower comes in. I had to prove that to senior leadership, and they backed off when they saw our bot had crashed one time. I was like, if we didn't have people, what would we have done? I get you're trying to cut costs, but you can't take people out of the equation completely.

For me, it would be integrity. Integrity is very important to me. It's not always easy to do the right thing, but it's always right to do the right thing. Honesty is a big thing for me, even if it can be hard. I respect and I value honesty a thousand percent. Being open-minded, not being judgmental, especially in healthcare, it's really easy for you to be judgmental, especially when you see people who are different than you, that come from a different lifestyle, background, or whatever. It's very easy for you to pass judgment. So to be open-minded and not be judgmental is really big for me. And then also, just be a decent human being. That is really big for me, whether work or just personal. Life is hard for so many people. Don't add to it. That's really how I think about it. You never know what battles people are facing. So I always try to extend grace to everyone.