Nasim Afsar-Manesh is a FEMBA(’17) candidate at UCLA Anderson. She performs a variety of roles, including chief quality officer for the Department of Medicine at UCLA Health, mother and student.
Q: Tell us about your education and why you chose to pursue a FEMBA degree at Anderson.
While I was in medical school, I became interested in internal medicine, it basically includes all of adult medicine, including heart and lung disease and cancer. I further developed an interest in hospital medicine, a branch of internal medicine that focuses on treating hospitalized adult patients. I was drawn to the acuity and urgency that comes with having to care for patients in a significant moment in their lives.
Shortly after I began working as a full-time clinician, I became engaged in opportunities that could help us build thriving and sustainable systems of care. This eventually led me to health care administration. I am really intrigued by how we can improve health care to provide higher quality and increased value for our patients and society. Interestingly, in my administrative roles within the UCLA Health, I realized that there were a number of areas, such as organizational behavior, strategy, finance and economics that I had not been exposed to in the past — an MBA at Anderson was the best logical step.
Q: So, this is your first year as a FEMBA at Anderson. What has been your favorite aspect thus far?
I think one of my favorite memories is from our organizational behavior class I took last fall (MGMT 409), taught by Professor Shapiro. In this class, we played a lot of different games to illustrate social behavioral concepts. In one particular game, we bid on getting a dollar from the professor, and the final bidding value was twenty-one dollars — which was shocking, considering the exchange price was twenty-one dollars for a mere dollar. It is a fantastic illustration of how people escalate their actions with little logic. Examining how behavioral theories apply to the real world is really fascinating.
Q: Has there been a defining moment in your life that made you decide to pursue a medical administrative career path? What’s the next step for you?
It’s been a gradual process. I started working in health care as a clinician in 2007 and absolutely loved it. To this day, it’s still the most fulfilling and special part of my professional career. But I was simultaneously inspired and energized by the opportunities to help build sustainable learning organizations. I realized it is my responsibility to help make health care better. I will always be a clinician; it really is the heart and soul of what I do. Seeing the challenges that our patients, providers and staff face on a daily basis is humbling. I’m excited about the degree of impact I am able to make in my administrative positions, improving health care for our current patients as well as patients in the future.
As for my future, I am still not sure what I want to be when I grow up (laughs). I think that I’ve been incredibly fortunate, in that, for the majority of my professional life I have been able to identifying major gaps in the system, set the vision for what exceptional performance will look like, build a robust team to thoroughly evaluate the gaps, and implement solutions that make a significant impact. I’ve been truly privileged to work with dedicated and talented people. The perfect job description for me is still evolving!
Q: What are the most critical problems faced by people in health care? How do you think these problems should be handled?
I think the national focus in health care right now is taking care of large populations of patients, and realizing that we are truly responsible and accountable for the population. Nationally, having a robust system that enables us to care for patients through the continuum of life is critical. We are responsible to deliver the highest quality of care at the appropriate and socially responsible cost. We’re placing great emphasis on the value of care we should deliver to our patients. Cultural changes have to happen and we need to develop novel ways of doing things to build a more robust system. The great news is that there are many hard working and dedicated people working relentlessly to deliver exceptional care in the face of our current challenges.
Q: How do you keep a healthy work/life/school balance? Do you have any hobbies?
It’s about constant prioritization! It’s tough to be able to balance the work, life and school domains and have a regular routine. A lot of it for me is prioritizing on a daily basis — maybe that’s my routine! I have two amazing girls, ages two and four, and they are the focus of our lives. I’m incredibly lucky to have a phenomenal spouse who is the source of support and, just as important, laughter for us all.
Sleep is my first hobby (laughs). It’s been really hard for me to have a consistent hobby with multiple responsibilities, but when I have time, I do love to run, reading and listening to audio books.
When I was younger, my passion was to be an astronaut. While I’m in a completely different field now, I still hope to go into space within my lifetime. With all the exciting development in commercial space travel, my dream is a possibility!
Q: Do you have any advice to offer people who may be at a career crossroads?
At the end of the day, I believe the best advice I can give is to be true to yourself. I think it’s a waste to spend our lives being defined by what other people want us to do, or doing what we’re good at, as opposed to pursuing our true passions. For me, I know I’m true to myself, when I wake up in the morning excited, thinking, “Wow, I can’t wait to get started with the day — I have the coolest job in the world.” While it’s a slight exaggeration (laughs), I can honestly say that I’ve really felt that way about my job every single day, even with the expected challenges of our profession. So, be true to yourself and pursue something that gets you truly excited.
Comments