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In her 17 years at GBMC, Jenn Burroughs worked toward a role she feels both challenges her and meets her ideal of servant leadership. She found it as the Practice Manager for the Dr. Francis C. Grumbine Center for Gynecologic Oncology and for the Center for Urogynecology and Pelvic Floor Disorders, overseeing day-to-day operations. 

Both practices help patients with conditions that can feel intensely personal and quite intimate. Jenn encourages her team to strive for the same combination of warmth and professionalism she brings to the work of putting patients at ease, even before they meet with their expert, caring physicians. From scheduling the team that greets patients as they arrive to coaching those who ensure that their charts are coded correctly, Jenn takes the administrative side of patient-centered care personally. 

“My role is constantly evolving, which forces me to grow and adapt and change,” she says. “It gives me a huge sense of purpose.” 

Though she started in a very different GBMC environment, Jenn has consistently sought and found new ways to contribute to the patients’ experience. A culinary degree and experience in restaurant kitchens brought her to the GBMC cafeteria in 2009, where she began as a cook. By 2015, she was ready to try something new when she saw an opening in oncology. Jenn was interviewed for the job by Practice Administrator Connie Herbold. 

“Connie and I both remember what I asked her that day,” Jenn says. “I said, ‘I just want someone to give me a chance.’” 

Connie did give her a chance, and both are happier for it. Jenn started answering phones in the Sandra & Malcolm Berman Cancer Institute and by 2022, she had become an assistant manager. 

Jenn has worked for other GBMC practices but says she has found her home in the Berman Cancer Institute. 

“A feeling of belonging is very important to me,” she explains. “And I have a familial sense about the people I work with.” 

Just as Jenn has taken advantage of educational opportunities to advance her career, she promotes education and professional growth among her staff. She has benefited both from GBMC’s tuition reimbursement program and a scholarship for GBMC employees sponsored by T. Rowe Price, and she encourages those on her team to do the same. 

She also prepares her team members for one another’s roles. As much as she feels at home as a practice manager, Jenn is not sitting still. She is considering learning to become a medical assistant, not because she wants to change jobs but because she can better serve the team if she can jump into the gap when a team member is absent.

 When you meet Jenn Burroughs, you are not aware of how much she has going on every minute. Instead, you are impressed by her stillness. Jenn’s calm demeanor comes from a deep well that she replenishes often. She is a devout Jehovah’s Witness, a faith she has held since childhood that she shares with her family. 

“It shapes who I am as a person,” she says. 

Jenn also loves to fish. Now that mornings are warmer, she’ll be out at North Point State Park, as soon as the gates open, armed with live bait, hoping for striped bass or perch. In the quiet of those early mornings, she is catching dinner, and some well-deserved moments of peace.

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