I'm a hospital executive who started working 12-hour ER shifts. I finally learned why my staff ignored my emails.
After becoming an EMT, hospital executive Linda Matzigkeit realized frontline workers needed better communication than emails.
Linda Matzigkeit, chief administrative officer at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, spent six months training as an EMT during the COVID-19 pandemic. The experience led her to change the way she communicated with her staff. Before her training, the hospital was struggling to retain front-line clinical staff as parents were taking time off to care for their children during remote schooling.
Linda wanted to help, so she decided to become an EMT. She trained two nights a week and picked up shifts on ambulances and in emergency rooms during weekends. After six months, she passed her national certification. Even though she was working in hospital leadership, she kept her EMT training a secret to be taken seriously. Despite being a salaried employee, Linda worked long shifts in the emergency department but was not paid more.
She realized her emails were going unread because frontline staff had little time to read them. To address this, Linda introduced a new internal communication tool and provided talking points for start-of-shift huddles. This experience humbled her but also made her proud, as she learned she could accomplish anything she set her mind to. Linda encourages others to become EMTs, as it showed her she can achieve big dreams.
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