Kimberly Long 0:00

Hello, everyone. I am excited to welcome Jolene Lonegan. She is the Associate Chief Nursing Officer and Executive Director for Patient Care Services for UC Davis Health. Welcome, Jolene. Good morning, Dr. Long. It's good to see you. Good to see you too. So this is what we call a mini podcast, and it's kind of like rapid fire questions. And so I'll start out with the first one. When you think about your current position, is it aligned with your original career goals? And if not, how did it deviate?

Joleen Lonigan 0:34

Yeah, fabulous. That's a great question. I started nursing school right out of high school, right? And so, you know, at the time when you're kind of in that transition of becoming a young adult, I knew that my works, my life work would be in relationship with working with people, helping people, being of service to the community that I, you know, uh chose to live in. And so that was definitely kind of the overarching kind of mission, I think, for myself, you know, at the beginning of my career that has continued to kind of drive the work ahead of me. I think role-based, I really saw myself working as a OB nurse practitioner, very specific at 18. I was like, I want to be an OB nurse practitioner and I want to work with women, and I want to, you know, be you know, a link, I think, for women's health, you know, with health equity and really being, I think, a crucial asset, right, to, you know, women's health. So that was kind of, you know, where my mindset was. I did finish my BSN and then I did work for a few years and I did go back to school with that exact specific focus, which was to, you know, get my FNP and start to work with women. And I finished that whole career trajectory, you know, from an educational lens. But something did start to happen where I started to have increasing leadership responsibility in my in my role at that time. And I did fall in love with the patient, you know, acute care patients and being able to really support hospitalize patients and finding that that maybe was the best fit, right, for me, of being able to, you know, rapid fire be with patients and being able to, you know, help to mitigate things in during an acute crisis. So my career did change, like in the sense of the way that I could continue to, you know, support and be in service of patients in my community. And I think at the end of the day, right, that I'm one of those people that I could be planted in many different settings and thrive. And this was a choice though, obviously. I could have continued to pursue other pathways with you know, the within this profession, but the acute care setting really became the place where I felt like I could be the most, just the way I think and the way that I can engage and activate people, felt like I was going to be able to be the most successful and have the most reward personally with the ability to kind of meet my personal mission.

Kimberly Long 3:16

Oh, I love that. And during the course of all of that, did you ever have a major moment when you had to pause and make a pulse check and just say, oh, wait a minute, let me do this pulse check and see what's going on here?

Joleen Lonigan 3:31

Yes, for sure. I think pulse checks are are kind of crucial for us both professionally as well as in the work that we do. I think a good example of one that came with me with a leadership discussion at one point was I, you know, I did have a my master's degree, and I had kind of resigned to the fact that I was not going to actively pursue returning, you know, for a doctorate degree or going back for like a DNP. And a fellow leader said to me that without those degrees, that certain doors may not be open for you in the future, in your profession. And somebody saying that to me, I just had never had gotten that, you know, that specific feedback that a door could be closed to you. That just like just made a very kind of sharp thought in my mind, like, okay, I gotta rethink this. Is this is this something I'm okay with, right? A door being closed, or do I want to go down the path of continued education? And which is, you know, what what I ended up doing, just in the sense that it did not feel good in my like mental capacity to think that a door may not be open. I think that something else that is continued to evolve over my leadership journey, looking at you know the work that we do right in acute care hospitals, it's hard, right? Healthcare is hard, but there's also everything that's happening in our world, in our communities that people you know are carrying, they bring that burden of what's happening into you know the work setting. And I have received some feedback, you know, at different times, and often very direct feedback from people that you know I am emotionally hurting right now, there's a lot going on, and I'm you know, carrying that. And so I think another big kind of pulse check in my career has been you really need to hold space for people that you know, people are carrying a lot. And as a leader, you need to often pause, stop, and just let people express, grieve, right? Whatever is is appropriate for kind of what is happening at that moment before you can kind of move forward with the other things that need to happen at work, right? Everyone is human, everybody is feeling, everybody needs a space to feel safe and to feel like their you know emotional, emotional needs have, you know, have been addressed or at least you know heard, right? So people can can move forward with the work that they have to do. So I think that's been kind of an ongoing pulse check for me, depending on what's you know, where we are at any point in the last, you know, 27 years of my career, really recognizing there's a lot going on.

Kimberly Long 6:23

Indeed, there is. And even with that and everything else that goes on as an executive in a hospital, you know, providing support to other people, how do you maintain connection with your own personal purpose?

Joleen Lonigan 6:38

Great question. Yeah. I think that the interesting thing about life and work is that everything I find is interconnected. And that if you are able to kind of like open your lens to kind of think of the work that you're doing in a way that you can tie it back to your purpose, it always just kind of increases the meaningfulness behind it. And I think a good example of this has been work around sustainability. And I've done some work within our organization over the last few years around sustainability. And I love that because it kind of has this like kind of triple aim impact, right? Where there's the you know, the benefit to the community, there's there's a financial benefit, and there's also kind of like a you know an environment, environmental kind of component to it. When I say to people, you know, most sustainability efforts have a budget, like a positive budgeted impact. We're gonna save money, we're gonna, you know, have decreased costs, decrease workflows. And I think when if I were to ever to say to people, hey, let's join a budget committee, right? Like I would not get like the engagement and enthusiasm. But when you turn it into something that people feel passionate about, like sustainability, the earth, health equity, how does it at the end of the day translate into outcomes? People can get excited about it. I mean, I put out an email and communication about sustainability work, and people from all over the organization want to jump in, they want to volunteer, they want to help. And at the end of the day, we're saving money. We're also, you know, making great outcomes for you know our patients and our organization. And then obviously down the road, there's the you know, impacts to our environment, which you know directly tie back to health equity and the lens of you know, caring for our larger community. And so I feel like in that type of work, if you're looking at quality or you're looking at driving, you know, difficult conversations or anything, if you're able to kind of tie it, you know, find those interconnected pieces of service, of feeling like you know, you can, you know, create a an impact, then you know, it brings you more satisfaction and or and or joy. So that's kind of a I think a tip I look at doing is kind of how do we tie everything back? I know I had a another example earlier in my career where we were having, you know, somebody brought up a clinical concern around transportation and how we were transporting patients interfacility and intrafacility transports. And this became kind of a work that ended up being, you know, a two-year kind of project initiative of just having a conversation with somebody around how we could create organizational response to inter- and interfacility transports, which at the end of the day, you know, has had amazing impacts for our patients, but has also done a lot of work around health equity too, and how we're able to transport patients that you know are needing support for clinic appointments and you know, being able to kind of navigate as in an ambulatory setting with complex care coordination and the sort. So it's been interesting to see, right? You think you just have this one problem, but when you kind of open up your lens, you can find solutions that are interconnected and kind of tie back to your mission.

Kimberly Long 10:07

I think that is a phenomenal example. And I know that a lot of the listeners will be able to resonate with that. And then the the the last question I have for you if you had the unique opportunity to give your younger self some advice, what would that be?

Joleen Lonigan 10:24

Boy, wow, that would have been very valuable to have the ability to do the superpower, right? Um, to be able to advise yourself younger. And I I think, you know, the big one is you can do this, right? Like this is hard. It's hard work, right? Healthcare and nursing and nursing leadership, it is, it's hard. And I think we spend a lot of time, we all do, right? Self-doubting ourselves, thinking we're not, you know, we're not ready, we're not fill in the blank, right? And you are, you are. I think that some of the ways that you can mitigate right that feeling and that sense is creating and belonging to communities and engaging. So, you know, joining professional organizations, networking with individuals, you know, within your profession, get out and connect with people that are, you know, on the same journey and path as you are. Just continues to validate you can do it. And these communities and uh professional organizations will also be there, you know, championing you, driving you forward, providing resources for you, and just kind of opening your eyes to things that you may not, you know, been aware of. I think something else that is is also been very important to me is I've been very um, I've done several volunteer missions, medical missions, and I started those probably like 10 years into my career. I probably, you know, in in hindsight, you know, missed so much opportunity where I could have done that earlier in my career, started earlier in my career. And so that's something that I I would definitely tell my younger self too, is you love this type of work and you know, and being of service of people, and and this is another great opportunity for you to to jump in and really engage and participate in something that just fills your heart with so much, so much joy.

Kimberly Long 12:18

That is amazing. Jolene, thank you so much for taking some time away from your day to spend with us.

Joleen Lonigan 12:24

It's been my pleasure.

Kimberly Long 12:26

Mine as well. Thank you so much.

Joleen Lonigan 12:28

Thank you, Dr. Lin.