Annallee has been invaluable in organizing our administrative department in Critical Care. She has standardized our agendas and meeting minutes and decreased our emails. Annallee is super-organized, which works well in this portfolio. She keeps us accountable during meetings with action items and tasks and is instrumental in finding efficiencies within our program. Annallee is a team player who is valued more than she realizes. She has volunteered to help other programs when short staffed without being asked as she’s always willing to help others. Her kindness is much appreciated in the office, as is her sense of humor. Please join me in congratulating Annallee for her achievements.

Betty Conner has been dedicated to the Manitoba Renal Program for over 20 years (if I recall correctly). I am nominating Betty because she truly deserves recognition for her unwavering commitment and hard work. As a mentor, she played a crucial role in training me during the initial weeks of my recent employment. Betty is always willing to offer her time and support to others, showcasing her exceptional qualities. With her retirement on the horizon, I wish her nothing but the best. Her contributions will be greatly missed, and her successor will undoubtedly have big shoes to fill!

It gives me great pleasure to nominate Ms. Carolyn Garlinski, Administrative Assistant, Infection Prevention and Control Unit, Health Sciences Centre for the Administrative Assistant of the Year. I have had the privilege of working with Carolyn for the past 24 years. Carolyn is the glue that holds all of our administrative activities together. Although Carolyn fulfills roles for both Shared Health and the University of Manitoba, it is impossible to separate the two as they are intimately interconnected. Carolyn’s positive attitude, and ability to always make near impossible tasks possible, have been the defining features of Carolyn’s abilities. I will summarize the major areas of Carolyn’s administrative activities as follow:

1.Teaching:
Carolyn is involved in helping to coordinate innumerable teaching activities, specifically, postgraduate activities such as Bug Day, Wound Day and Consultations in Infectious Diseases. For all of these programs, Carolyn is involved in liaising with presenters, soliciting abstracts, multiple choice questions and assembling the abstract booklet. While this might seem like a straight forward task it is actually exceptionally complicated and takes months for each program. In addition, Carolyn is involved coordinating the accreditation packages for each of these programs. In addition to postgraduate medical education, Carolyn also helps to coordinate my activities for undergraduate medical education, specifically, the Diabetic Foot Teaching Sessions that involve multiple tutors over multiple days. This also can be quite a challenging task as it involves liaising with innumerable tutors, and the administrative staff at the University of Manitoba. Carolyn is also responsible for organizing the Infection Prevention and Control orientation sessions for the International Medical Graduates, Physician Assistants and Med I. Carolyn organizes the tutors and teaching groups as well as oversees so that all the appropriate materials are available to the tutors. In addition to the activities for local programs as outlined above, Carolyn is also responsible for assisting with the accreditation for the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Prevention Surveillance Annual Symposium. This is a prestigious event which is a collaboration between the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Association of Medical Microbiologists and Infectious Diseases of Canada and of course, the University of Manitoba which is the accrediting body.

2.Manuscript and Presentation Preparation:
Since I do not actually type, I dictate any communication that needs to be prepared. As a result, Carolyn is involved in the preparation of scientific manuscripts that then undergo multiple cycles of editing, with our co-authors and myself. Carolyn helps to keep the various editions of the edits coordinated and collated. In addition to manuscript preparation, Carolyn is an expert at preparing PowerPoint presentations.

3.Accounts:
Carolyn is an expert with excel databases helping to manage our budgets and grants and liaising with the research staff at the University of Manitoba to ensure that appropriate bookkeeping and account reconciliation is undertaken.

4.Infection Prevention and Control Unit:
Activities for the Infection Prevention and Control (IP&C) Unit constitute a large proportion of Carolyn’s activities. Carolyn attends all of the Infection Prevention and Control Committee meetings, takes and edits the minutes. Carolyn is involved in the management of my schedule which at times is a incomprehensible and unsurmountable task given the number of conflicts and importance of many of the meetings. Carolyn is always able to find a way to squeeze in another meeting so that all our program administrative commitments can be met.

5.Patient Care:
While Carolyn’s job description never entailed interacting with the public or patient’s themselves, this slowly crept into Carolyn’s administrative activities as patient’s frequently do no know how to reach the outpatient clinic. As a result, Carolyn is an expert at diffusing tense situations with patients who may be frustrated with voicemail in the various clinics and who are seeking urgent attention. Carolyn’s calm and pleasant demeanor always helps to reassure patients that their issues will be addressed by the appropriate person whether it is our clinic staff or myself. On a number of occasions, Carolyn has been able to recognize serious patient concerns or that of family members and will immediately bring them to my attention and in so doing a number of patients have had positives outcomes because of her empathetic nature, ability to listen, and recognize when issues need to be addressed promptly.

6.Baby Sitter:
While Carolyn never imagined that she would spend her life chasing mature adults to appear for lectures, meetings, and presentations on time, she has become an expert at this task. Sadly, when Carolyn is away from the office, I struggle to keep my schedule under control despite all of her numerous reminders, and clear instructions.

7.Independent Thinker:
Carolyn works independently as I am often on the wards, in clinic or in meetings. Carolyn is able to prioritize assignments, and somehow manages to keep focused despite innumerable interruptions. Carolyn always seems able to complete the tasks requested of her by the end of each day. Carolyn is also a problem solver which allows her to deal with and resolve many issues without assistance from others.

8.Interpersonal Skills:
Perhaps what might set Carolyn above the rest is her excellent interpersonal skills. Over the years, there have been multiple members of our team. Carolyn has always been able to interact with all members in a friendly and professional manner. Carolyn is a team player and is happy to assist where ever and whenever possible. Although Carolyn reports directly to me, she assists the Infection Prevention and Control Practitioners whenever necessary and maintains a sense of calm regardless of juggling many tasks at once. Carolyn has also demonstrated that If something is of an urgent nature, she will stay until the task is completed. Carolyn also has an excellent rapport with the clinic staff and they are able to work seamlessly together.

Over the past 24 years, Carolyn and I have developed a relationship where we almost like dance partners. We anticipate each other’s moves and, Carolyn is always there to help anticipate problems before they occur, and quickly intervenes to ensure the efficient and timely running of our office.

On a personal note, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with Carolyn and I cannot think of a better person with whom to have worked for the past 24 years. I do hope that we have many years working together and that Carolyn’s undying commitment to her job continues.

Cathy is always going above and beyond her usual jobs. She helps with searching for resources in downtime. She helps plant gardens for us by planting seeds in her own garden to start the plants and brings them in and maintains our office plants since a lot of us can not keep them thriving. She is the first point of contact when participants and pharma reps come to the office for the Doctor and she is always bright cheery and again going above to make them welcome. She deserves this because she is one who is quiet about the things she does and should get some recognition. She also is always offering help when we need to decompress after a tough call or tough interaction. She is always part of the team in all capacity.

Charlotte has been a steady presence in a sea of change. Charlotte offers a friendly welcome to every employee and guest in the building every day. She works hard and seeks to make improvements. She’s an active member of the team, shares her ideas, and solutions based on years of experience. Charlotte is an active observer and shares her feedback with the team. She has a good sense of humour and shows genuine care and concern for others. She’s fabulous and we are so lucky to have her!

Cherry is dedicated to her team. She is an informal team leader, taking on new challenges in our department, and leading others through these changes. For example, she has accepted use of, embraced, and has learned to manage multiple scheduling systems and waitlists. By doing this, she ensures that the staff stay busy, and maximizes the resources available for patient care. She is an informal leader, as she is the most experienced in our department, and takes on supporting and teaching new admin staff. She is also the strong silent type, never complaining, always with a smile. Cherry helps to re-direct the many patients who present to the rehab desk, looking for directions to elsewhere in the hospital. She is always with kind to the public, ensuring they feel welcome despite presenting in the wrong location. We really appreciate Cherry for her efforts to make our department efficient for staff, welcoming for patients and the public, and overall improving our place of work.

Chris Block demonstrates exceptional administrative mastery within Youth Forensic Services and our team is lucky to have her. Her remarkable contributions are evident through the various key responsibilities she undertakes, each highlighting her dedication, efficiency, and ability to maintain cohesion within our service. Chris demonstrates proficiency in typing for the doctors, and completing many other administrative tasks, which showcases her commitment to facilitating the smooth operation of the office. Chris’s proficiency and attention to detail ultimately aids in the delivery of quality care to clients. She plays a pivotal role in ensuring the team stays focused and productive which streamlines workflow and keeps everyone aligned with their tasks and responsibilities. Chris ensures deadlines for our Court-Ordered Forensic Assessments are met which reflects positively on the organization and assists in our office maintaining a certain professional reputation and credibility. Moreover, despite her multifaceted role, Chris brings her witty sense of humour to the table each day, demonstrating her positive attitude. She creates an enjoyable workplace atmosphere, making it a pleasure to come to work each day. Overall, Chris’s understanding of the service coupled with her outstanding administrative skills, consistency to deliver, and personality, makes her an invaluable asset to our team. She is a one Woman show, deserving of some recognition for the incredible hard work she does. Thank you for considering Chris Block as a Nominee.

Colleen is the most exceptional administrative professional I have ever worked with. She possesses the rare ability to predict needs before they arise, and she is always acting in proactive fashion to facilitate the activities of our section, and to make the lives of the physicians she works with easier. Colleen doesn’t need to wait to be asked to do something, but intervenes in advance. As one small example, she saw that I was always manually correcting a form I use routinely, and proceeded to make me a new version of that form so I would not need to continue making my corrections (I hadn’t even thought to ask for this). She has kindly agreed to take on extra work and physicians for our section. Her work ethic is unparalleled – we’re the only people I know who encourage our admin to work LESS (we’ve had to encourage her to stop checking her email on vacation!). She keeps exceptional records, reminds us of our own deadlines and rotating clinical responsibilities, and knows the answers to all questions (or where to find them). Even as a recent attendee for some mandatory training sessions, she reached out with some suggestions/corrections for an early presentation and ended up being recruited to help with the development of later sessions. There is truly no one more deserving of recognition for her excellence as an Administrative Professional.

Debora joined the CODI Program 12 years ago and has been very instrumental with the team in building a program of Excellence to run smoothly. Debora has supported the CODI team over the years with many challenges and changes. Debora has embraced change with positive outlook for our program and helped to work through our challenges always with a goal to find a solution. Debora has provided training for AY3’S, coverage for FACT/Forensics programs when short staffed and payroll for various sites over the years. I have always described Debora as our fabric that helps to keep our program running smoothly. Debora has gone above and beyond her job description to ensure we can manage when she is away from office. If Debora does not know something she is motivated to help find an answer it’s our day to celebrate Debora and say Thank You! Our team is always appreciative for all Debora does to support our team every day. This program salutes Debora on Administrative Professionals Day! We thank Debora for all her support and the extra miles she goes for all of us in a year! We would not be where we are today without her support!

Dierdre is very much the glue in our program. As our admin she does an amazing job of making sure not only that we are all on track with admin stuff on a day to day basis but she often has the task of making sure us social workers don’t get lost in a medically driven administrative system. She is often the first voice the families we serve interact with, her compassion and warmth is so helpful I find often people forget Dierdre isn’t actually the therapist. Dierdre wears about 12 different hats in our office as the lone admin and we feel it STRONGLY when she is away. We tell her all the time that we appreciate her but I’d love to see her got some recognition from the greater system that she serves in.

Fay is hard working and dedicated. She is always willing to share her knowledge with the team to make sure that we can all do better. She always brings a positive attitude and a smile, which makes working with her that much better. I know that the Midwifery team that she supports really appreciates how she takes the initiative and makes sure things are done effeciently!

There are too many stories to tell 🙂 Gen is always organized, efficient and thorough in her job. She makes my job so much easier by tirelessly keeping me on track whether its submitting forms to her or helping me navigate and deal with accounts payable/payroll issues. She always puts our clients first by courteously answering the phone promptly and helping direct client calls to where they need to go. She does all this with a smile 🙂 I appreciate not only her administrative skills but also that she is a thoughtful and kind person which shows in how she communicates and treats not only our clients but the staff here on our team. She is incredibly deserving of this recognition. Thank so much Gen for all that you do 🙂