SHARING A LIFE AND A STAGE
Denise Fink, M.P.H. '04 and Gary Fink, M.D. '79:
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Denise Fink, M.P.H. '04, shares an alma mater with husband Gary Fink, M.D. '79 |
"It was such a happy coincidence," Denise says. "Here I was graduating while Gary was celebrating his 25th reunion. We had to buy the kids New York Medical College sweatshirts."
Denise didn't realize when she began the public health program that she'd be graduating the same time as Gary's 25th reunion. At the time she was too worried that being a 43- year-old mother of three who had been out of the work force for 12 years—except for working as a summer camp nurse—would hamper her ability to handle graduate school and returning to work full time. "You always start out with, can I really do this?" she says, recalling her fear of starting work and school simultaneously. "If I'd had any brains I would have done one at a time, but I had no idea what I was looking for."
She did know that she was more attracted to the administrative than the clinical side of health care. She also knew that she wanted to focus her work and her academic life on health policy and management. As a first step she called Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. to inquire about a job. "It was one of the most difficult phone calls I had to make because I really didn't think I was qualified to do anything anymore," she says.
In 1999, just as her eldest daughter Emily was applying to college, Denise accepted a position as a full-time case coordinator and matriculated in the health policy and management program, which she completed in four years. "There was such a great dovetail between what I was learning at school and the work I was doing," says Denise, who became manager of regulatory compliance two years later. Last year she became director of regulatory compliance, a promotion she attributes to her M.P.H.
She says studying for the M.P.H. degree was exciting but challenging and credits her three daughters, Emily, 21, a senior at the University of Vermont; Lauren, 19, a sophomore at the University of Rhode Island; and Kara, 17, a junior at the Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, for helping her through. "I'd have my books on the table and they'd say, ‘Mom's talking to herself again," she says, chuckling. "Kara would help me with algebra. Then I'd call Emily, the economics major and bounce health economics issues off her. Lauren was my psychological support." The greatest help came from her husband. "Gary was the one all along who told me I could do it when I didn't think I could," Denise says.
"She is an incredibly creative, bright and gifted woman who is wonderful at what she does," says Dr. Fink, a managing partner in a 15-doctor orthopaedic practice in Dutchess County, N.Y. "I was proud of her for moving into the unknown."
The "unknown" is now a multifaceted job, which involves overseeing quality assurance for the medicine, emergency, radiology and oncology departments and making sure the hospital is in compliance with Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations standards, which include national safety goals. "I really enjoy looking at processes and figuring out how to make them better," Denise says. "I feel I'm doing something significant if I can put a process in place that prevents an error."
To that end, Denise has implemented "time out" procedures for operating room personnel so they can verify that surgeons are operating on the correct patients for the right reasons. She has established procedures that allow nurses to assess certain criteria in patients and administer vaccines without a doctor's order. She has also applied MRI safety regulations, which mandate that rooms containing MRI machines be free of jewelry, implantable devices, metal shavings or any other magnetic materials that could be propelled by the machines' powerful magnetic force and cause injury.
"It was such a happy coincidence ... Here I was graduating while Gary was celebrating his 25th reunion."
These days Denise—a woman who once questioned whether she was capable of handling a full-time job, let alone graduate school—is preparing to take the National Association for Healthcare Quality certifying exam. Despite her increased confidence, however, she still battles occasional self-doubt, as she did on her graduation day last year, which she wanted to skip altogether. "I was sure I'd be the oldest person there, way too old to be in a cap and gown," she says. But her husband insisted that she go: for their daughters and for herself. Dr. Fink reflects: "I remember going across that stage at my graduation. It was great seeing my wife go across the same stage 25 years later."