“That’s not my job!” I said indignantly when the office manager suggested I come into the clinic for a day to work as a Medical Office Assistant at our family business— Medi-Kel Clinic. One of her co-workers had been bold enough to question how I could be making financial decisions concerning wage rates, if I did not really understand the value of the job I was pricing.
My initial reaction was predictable given the mindset that managers ought to remain above the fray so they can be “objective” about jobs in the business. Really though, it was a pride issue. I thought the job was beneath my ability.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt a conviction that the co-worker was right and I was wrong. If I was to be true to our core values in the business, I had a duty to listen and respond.
Humbled
I am the business manager of my wife’s medical clinic. There are six doctors at the clinic and seven Medical Office Assistants (MOAs for short). As the business manager, I oversee an office manager who oversees the staff people. I work out of my home. Often, I have heard the concern that it is difficult to work with me because I am not onsite.
There is an organizational culture in medical practice that values people for what they can produce. The value of the Doctor is very high. On the other hand, office staff are not valued very highly. In fact, Doctors can be quite rude and arrogant with their medical staff, although we strive to avoid that happening at our clinic. So office staff can struggle with a feeling that leadership does not value who they are or what they do.
So when I was approached by the office manager with the idea that I try it out for a day to really get a feel of what the staff do and how important their job is to the business. I thought why not?
When the day arrived, it did not get off to a very good start. I arrived 3 hours late for my shift! There was a slight communication problem on my part as to when I was supposed to be there. Of course, all the staff were saying. “Looks like he has chickened out!“ Anyway, I did finally arrive and I spent 6 hours working as a Medical Office Assistant. I had to be shown everything and I was prone to making a lot of mistakes. One poor patient was left sitting in the waiting room for an hour because I had forgotten to register them and get out their chart!
It was a humbling experience for me. I felt weak because I did not know what I was doing. I felt afraid that I was going to make a mistake. I felt rushed by all the demands of the patients and phone calls and faxes! I felt intimidated by the responsibility we had to care for people’s medical concerns. I felt what a rookie MOA feels on their first day!
The next day, I got a call from the Office Manager and she had a very good report from the staff about my time there. It seems that the staff people were much more impressed by the fact I actually showed up for work and I was willing to be a rookie MOA for a day than by the fact I did a poor job registering patients. One of the comments from the card they sent me. “We’re all so glad you were willing to work with u and see our world first hand.”
First Hand Experience
Seeing our world first hand is exactly what Jesus came to do and it is exactly what He is sending us to do! This is the starting point for our clinic’s organizational culture. It is precisely because of Christ’s incarnation that we are called to incarnate His presence into our world. In John 20:21 Jesus says to his disciples, “As the Father sent me, even so, I send you!” Christians at work are sent into the world to be for the world what Jesus was for his world, the visible presence of a loving God who cares for His world and those who live in it. How to put that into practice is often a challenge.
Here, everybody’s work contributes to the success of the clinic and every person is valued equally as a member of the clinic family. The flavor that this has created at our clinic is popular. A bank teller remarked to me how different our clinic was than others that she had visited. Job applicants specifically seek us out because they have had a great experience as a walk in patient at our clinic. Patients have commended the staff and physicians for the extraordinary patient care experience. One of the Medical Office Assistants wrote to the Clinic owners, “The work environment is like no other that I have ever experienced.”
Mike McLoughlin resides in Kelowna, BC, Canada. He is happily married with three teenage children, the founder of Youth With A Mission, Marketplace Mission. a ministry of YWAM (BC) Society Inc., and also looks after the business side of his wife’s medical clinic. For more on Mike and his blogging. (http://blog.mike.mcloughlin.com)
Note: Mike’s blog has no official connection with Faith@Work.