Organizational Culture-Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

So far it has been a fascinating experience to absorb the Organizational Culture at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The initial experience of working at a large non-profit hospital is unique to anything I have experienced before. It is full of passionate employees that all seem to understand that they contribute in someway to cancer treatment (an important cause).

The etiquette at the hospital is semi-formal. The dress code is business casual and the day to day interactions between employees are casual and professional at the same time. Co-workers have informal joking relationships in the privacy of an office or break room but in the presence of patients they are very professional and approachable.

In the pediatric department it appears that there are different managers and leaders that organize different functions. My boss for example manages child life specialists, operations managers and many more random employees in the department. Her job is to make sure programming, activities, patient support etc. are satisfactory. This is a lot of work and as a result I have felt a bit extraneous and cumbersome as a lowly intern. I do not want to get in the way of the important tasks that she must accomplish in order to keep the pediatric department running smoothly. Even so I have found that I have been given training and attention yet they have been delivered to me in sporadic ways. Sometimes I have been left for hours not really knowing what my role was but still I have tried to do my best. It is frustrating yet it is also worthwhile because I want my boss to be managing her responsibilities. The atmosphere and organizational culture is this way because of the severity of the cause that is being treated. This is a cancer hospital and my patients are pediatric cancer patients. For that reason every interaction and management choice seems to hold more weight as it can effect the life of a deathly ill child.

After only two weeks the formal structure is still unclear and I am looking forward to understanding it better. This organization is brilliant and it creates abundant hope to families that have been struck with the worst hardships.