Posted by Shehzad Saeed on August 25, 2020
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
I am a graduate of Dow Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan. I was the first in my family to seek medical education, having been inspired by the work of programs like Doctors without Borders. My plan for seeking postgraduate training drastically changed when I applied for and received my immigrant visa in the US lottery and came to the United States to seek residency and post residency training in pediatric gastroenterology.
I have had many blessings and learnings that I have had the good fortune of being exposed to in this great adopted country of mine. This is a very brief story of my journey to become involved with ImproveCareNow, beginning as a practicing pediatric gastroenterologist at a participating children’s hospital and leading to my present role as Clinical Director for ImproveCareNow.
I chose pediatric gastroenterology initially because I was interested in the effects of chronic diarrhea and malnutrition on the lives of children and I wanted to do my part to manage and prevent these conditions. During my training and fellowship, I was fortunate to have amazing and caring mentors in Richard J. Grand, MD and Menno Verhave, MD. They instilled in me the desire to be curious, caring, compassionate and an advocate for patients and their families suffering from inflammatory bowel diseases and to focus on this as an area of interest and research.
The generosity of spirit demonstrated by these patients continues to inspire me and is nothing short of miraculous to me. These experiences and relationships have truly shaped my viewpoint and desire to drive excellence of care and improve quality of life for these wonderful children and adolescents who happen to be suffering from a chronic disease at such young age.
“Own your future = think and pivot from “What is” to “What could be” - Anonymous
I began to study Quality Improvement (QI) as a way to gain exposure to processes and system improvement opportunities that I would use as a division chief at University of Alabama at Birmingham. I drank the QI Kool-Aid – so-to-speak - through an Intermountain Healthcare miniATP course and immediately, I loved it. The more I studied and implemented QI, the more it became a core part of the way I thought about medicine. When I was presented with an opportunity to work at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, which has QI embedded in its DNA, it was too tempting to let go of.
In 2010, I transitioned to Cincinnati Children's Hospital's gastroenterology division and the IBD program to hone, amplify, and augment my QI learning, as well as learn about systems thinking. Again, I was fortunate to have incredible mentors in Mitchell Cohen, MD and Adam Mezoff, MD in gastroenterology; Uma Kotagal, MD, Peter Margolis, MD, PhD, and Michael Seid, PhD in the Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, and Richard Colletti, MD, in ImproveCareNow (of which Cincinnati Children’s is a participating care center). Today, I work at Dayton Children’s Hospital, where I apply my learnings to improve processes and drive efficiency in patient experience and value-based care in our Clinically Integrated Network.
In 2020, I accepted the position of Clinical Director of ImproveCareNow. In this new role, I am looking forward to augmenting the phenomenal journey of the ImproveCareNow community. I plan to work in concert with new Executive Director, Kristin Howe, DC, MHA; Transition Director, Howard Baron, MD; Chief Scientific Director, Peter Margolis, MD, PhD; as well as the ImproveCareNow Board of Directors, Staff, Clinicians, patients and parents to develop the strategic direction of the network, ensure sustainability, and build partnerships with payers, industry, foundations and funding agencies. Together we will continue to improve health and care for young people with IBD.
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