Who are you and what do you do for work?

My name is Christina Hollingshead and I am a registered nurse by background. I initially worked in the Emergency Department at North York General Hospital in Toronto for 6 years and then pivoted to several jobs including the team manager for the vaccine program at North York General Hospital, healthcare consulting at KPMG, and now more recently the Clinical Quality & Practice, Urgent & Critical Care, and Mental Health Manager at Mount Sinai Hospital.

My time at KPMG was focused in the Operational Excellence space given my background. One of the major clients I was working with was the Nova Scotia Health Authority. I supported them on 2 projects, the first one being the development of a mental health program and helping them to set up a governance model to effectively roll out their new strategic direction. The second project I was working closely with one of the tertiary care centre Emergency Department programs to streamline their emergency department and the transfers between the Emergency Department and inpatient floors.

How did you find your time in consulting? Did you enjoy it?

It's really fantastic to meet people from so many different backgrounds with such diversity of thought, high level thinking, and a team that can support you in so many different ways.

I had previously only worked really with a clinical team, and so consulting helped me see a different side of healthcare, particularly from a financial and business side of things. I found it interesting to communicate clinical challenges to non clinical people, which I think was a really, really big learning curve. For example, I was so used to just saying, “oh, well they had an MI, so that means that we can't move them” but when you actually get into it, you have to be really specific about what is the actual reason why they can’t be moved to a different room. You start to really understand how to communicate with people in a broader perspective.

Finally, I would say the thing I really loved about consulting is just that opportunity to get so many different views of the healthcare sector. You're working at like the highest level with the federal government, with the provincial government, and then you're also working on projects with small organizations, community-based organizations, and with all different kind of walks of people from all different walks of life, different kind of levels of thought. It's just fantastic to be exposed to different clients.

What motivated you to change career paths?

Leading up to the pandemic I was already starting to feel burnt out from just some of the challenges in the system including flow issues, hallway medicine, and many of the things that other folks that are reading this are dealing with right now.

I was frustrated with what I was experiencing as a frontline Emergency Department nurse and it eventually led me to realize how much I really enjoy quality improvement and how much I really wanna put effort into making the system better, which is why I decided to do my Masters in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.

What advice do you have for someone looking to make a similar career change?

So the piece of advice I always like to pass on, that someone pass on to me and I think is a really helpful is to take a step back and think about what is it that you enjoy or what is it that you want to do with your life? And that sounds so obvious, but really taking the time to not jump into something because it's maybe the first thing that comes along.

This could be the program you think you might get into the easiest if you're considering doing a higher education or thinking more longer term - what do I feel I'm going to be passionate about in 5 or 10 years?

For me, I really loved quality improvement and I was lucky that there were multiple programs that I was able to apply and luckily got into. Definitely apply to different programs and see where you get in and then choose the one that makes the most sense for you. So I think it's really about considering where you wanna go and then strategically making decisions based on that end goal.

There's nothing wrong with doing something different because you think that it's the right fit for you. And even if you go through with the program or go into a role you don't love, you can always change. Don’t be scare of taking the jump - 100%. You should definitely take the jump, even if you think it's silly or you’re afraid of looking like the dumbest person in the class.

I found in those moments, that's when you grow the most because you're surrounded by diversity of thought, diversity of opinions, and it can really make you grow as a person in, in ways that you didn't really realize could be possible.

If people had more questions and wanted to reach out, would you be okay with that?

Absolutely! Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn