Voices of Healthcare: Professional Perspectives: The Alaska healthcare landscape.

• Author: Rhode, Scott
• Position: HEALTHCARE SPECIAL SECTION

"I think there's been a change in culture, and I think I Alaska has been a little bit more progressive in promoting women," says Ella Goss, CEO of Providence Alaska Medical Center (PAMC). Goss started working at Anchorage's largest hospital in 1997 as an ER nurse and rose through the ranks of management, Providence has intentionally promoted female leaders from within, she says, developing their potential because the talent pool in Alaska is so small due to the state's population.

The population was even smaller when four Roman Catholic nuns followed the 1902 gold rush to Nome and started a hospital there. In 1910, they built a hospital in Fairbanks, and in 1939 they built a fifty-two-bed hospital in Anchorage. PAMC has grown to 401 beds and is one of the largest employers in the state.

From the Sisters of Providence to the face of Alaska's COVID-19 response. Dr. Anne Zink, women have led the way when it comes to keeping the Last Frontier healthy. Without discounting the contributions of the entire medical community, Alaskans have relied on female physicians, nurses, therapists, technicians, administrators, and support staff as the backbone of the healthcare system. Because of this history, we sought women's perspectives on the state of healthcare in Alaska, particularly as the pandemic has tested the system and everyone who works to maintain it.

Many Paths

Prior to statehood, barely a dozen MDs worked in Alaska, and female doctors were even rarer. When Helen Whaley and Elizabeth Eisner arrived in the territory in the '50s, they were the first of their kind. Such firsts still occur in the 21st century. This summer, Dr. Maryna Orin came to Anchorage as the first woman in Alaska practicing in her specialty, bariatric surgery.

If she had not left her home country of Belarus, Orin might not be helping obese and severely overweight patients today. "A career in medicine in Belarus was not a highly sought career path for many political reasons, and I just kind of brushed it off," she says. Maybe she would've become an engineer, except that she came to the United States as an exchange student in Indiana.

"That's when I allowed myself to explore what is it that I really want, not what society thinks I should do but what is it I want," Orin recalls. Her path began with volunteering at hospitals, then going to a community college, transferring to a four-year school, then to medical school, and then a fellowship at Duke. "Just because something seemed impossible at the time, don't give up on your dreams."

Happenstance is how Stephanie Spencer describes her entry into healthcare, starting in the 70s as a technician performing electrocardiograms (EKG) for extra cash while attending college. Spencer recalls, "A male friend of mine told me about an EKG job at a large hospital on the midnight shift. Of course, at that time I didn't know what an EKG technician was, but with my incessantly inquiring mind, I asked him to show me what he did, then went to the college medical library to find out everything else I could about the job!"

Spencer became a supervisor, then manager. She earned a master's degree in healthcare management, and now she oversees clinical services for Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation in Dillingham, responsible for audiology, optometry, pharmacy, physical therapy, radiology, and the laboratory.

The chief medical officer for the State of Alaska never set out to have that job. In fact, when Dr. Anne Zink was growing up in Colorado, "I told myself I would never be a physician." She studied inorganic chemistry instead, but she wound up in med school anyway. After working in the ER in Palmer, public health caught her interest, and from there she was appointed to a position most Alaskans never hear about. On her watch, the COVID-19 crisis came, and Zink became the doctor to the entire state's bedside. However, Zink says she doesn't see herself as a role model, if only because she feels inspired by so many others.

While some are drawn into healthcare. Dr. Jennifer Kolanko strove to enter the field from a young age. "As early as third grade," she says, "a good friend of mine and I would rent books from the library with a medical focus." Kolanko, the manager of PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center's Rehabilitation Therapies department, credits her interest to growing up with hearing-impaired parents and a hearing-impaired sibling. She...