Building relationships to provide exceptional cancer care
Amy McGraw, PA-C, says the culture at Mission Cancer + Blood feels “like a family.”
Amy McGraw, PA-C, at Mission Cancer + Blood, part of UI Health Care, feels like fate drew her to work in oncology after spending time in an emergency department and family practice clinic earlier in her career. We asked her to tell us more about her role and how she approaches it.
What has your career path looked like?
I worked in an emergency department (ED) as my first job. It was fun and I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of a busy ED. Then I transitioned to family medicine where I really got to develop relationships with patients, getting to know them and their families, and watching their kids grow.
After seeing more and more cancer diagnoses at the family practice clinic, it felt like the universe was pulling me into working with oncology. I referred patients to Mission and was always intrigued by how kind and helpful the physicians and staff were. In some ways, I feel like fate brought me to Mission when I started in February 2021. One of the things I love about my role is I get both the mix of the hustle and bustle of working at the hospital, while also being able to develop these close relationships with my patients and their families.
Would you share more about your current role at Mission?
I work on the hospital flex team as an advanced practice provider (APP) and physician assistant. Each hospital flex team has two APPs working alongside a physician in the hospital, covering both MercyOne or UnityPoint in downtown Des Moines. We also do overnight call 365 days a year.
It’s unique in that we don’t work within a “medical home” dynamic of a clinic or seeing patients with appointments. Essentially, we run around the hospital, working 12-hour days seeing everyone who is on our service — this could mean anything from caring for patients admitted to us to providing consulting to processing new admissions, for example. We see anywhere from around 20-40 patients a day as a team when rounding.
When I am on call, I typically admit at least two or three patients each night between the two hospitals. The most admits I have had in a single night is seven! That was a wild night. Also, if a patient begins to dramatically decompensate, I will go in to see them to assess the situation and discuss with family.
In addition to those in-person visits, we also take calls all night long from patients at home to provide advice, calls from the nursing staff for all our inpatient patients, and calls from hospital emergency departments both in Des Moines and all our outreach hospitals, to provide counsel or facilitate transfers.
So, my schedule is a little all over the place! Unlike some on-call roles where there can be quiet nights, we are awake and actively working. Understandably, we don’t work the day after being on call.
I know it doesn’t appeal to everyone, but the flexibility and variability of a role like this works well for me. I went into health care because I want to take care of human beings — and this role gives me so many opportunities to really be a hands-on provider for my patients.
What is special about working at Mission Cancer + Blood?
We are like a family. There is really a culture that feels like home and where I can be my authentic self. At Mission, there is a shared philosophy among our entire team to always do what’s right for the patient, which matches my own personal approach.
Our leaders want us to enjoy coming to work. They want us to enjoy taking care of our patients, and the joy we have from feeling appreciated and valued is projected back every day in the way we do that.
We also focus on relationship building, both within our team and with other providers within the hospitals. It’s important to have a close relationship with everyone who may interact with your patient, to ensure that seamless care is taking place.
And I really love our doctors. I can call anyone of them at 3 in the morning and they are ready and willing to help. They are phenomenal people.
At the end of the day, the culture matters to me more than anything. I have to be the best that I can be at work so I can come home and be the best that I can be for my family.
Working in cancer care can be stressful – how do you approach your work to avoid burnout?
In general, I feel like it’s important to have a mentality that you are going to learn something every day, because in medicine, things are always changing and evolving. I also feel like if you’re not learning every day, it’s probably time to retire!
I see every patient interaction as an opportunity to learn something. Sometimes it’s the stories they tell me; sometimes it’s their perspective on their diagnosis. It makes me tear up to think about how resilient they are and how hard they fight. I have patients who would be willing to walk through fire to live another day to be with their family, to have that silly argument, to “have to” attend that conference. Through that, I have learned to put little annoyances in my own life into perspective, because the little or mundane things DO make a big difference to my patients.
My patients are phenomenal. I love them and I get attached to them. I take pride in really getting to know them for who they are as a person; they are not just a diagnosis or a room number to me — they are a whole person, with a family who loves them at home. I think about this when I’m missing something in my personal life to stay behind at the hospital; or when I get a latenight phone call. Even if I am cranky and tired, I try not to be because I know I’m making a difference for that person.