Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, Internal Medicine

The greatest way I have seen CIR impact Brookdale is with last years contract negotiations; they helped residents lobby for increased pay, improved work flow to decrease out of title work (such as phlebotomy and transporting patient), and helped establish a $75k patient safety fund that is to be run by residents. When administration attempted to take control of the patient safety fund, CIR was there to help ensure the power stayed in the hands of the residents. Allowing residents more time to focus on patient care and less time on performing ancillary services, such as drawing blood, has greatly improved the quality of care we provide our patients and has made the residents much happier in their daily work activities.

CIR has taught me a tremendous amount about how to be a resident leader, how to galvanize support for a cause and how to work with administration to reach a common goal – improving patient care. In my role as departmental representative for CIR, I have become a more confident, have improved my interpersonal skills and have learned how to communicate effectively with other residents and hospital administration particularly in times of opposing opinions.

I believe that for CIR to increase their national efficacy we need to increase our membership, not only in current CIR hospitals but also by increasing out-reach to non-CIR hospitals in an effort to promote unionization. If elected RVP I would be interested in visiting non-CIR hospitals in the NY area to encourage residents to unionize and improve their residency experience.

I intend to help CIR empower our nation’s interns, residents and fellows by helping increase union membership, specifically by helping unionize formerly non-unionized hospitals. I additionally would make myself available to help leadership at struggling CIR hospitals to improve their experience in any way I can.

CIR has done a tremendous job of raising awareness of the current political attack on unions and encouraging residents to fight back. I can say with confidence that my residency experience would be worse without the presence of CIR. As such, I believe that CIR should continue to raise awareness of the threats facing unions and continue to encourage their members to fight back by reaching out to their local government or participating in rallies and protests.