Amazing patients are 'an inspiration'
Patient-care coordinator Courtney Barry finds great reward in LTFU
Graduating from college with a degree in photography, Courtney Barry hadn't quite pictured herself as a patient-care coordinator in the Hutchinson Center's Long-Term Follow-Up Program. But when her first job out of school turned out to be as a scheduler for a local health-care group, she got an unexpected taste of just how rewarding a career dedicated to patient care could be.
"It was completely random how it happened," said Barry, who joined LTFU last year after first working as a team coordinator in the Center's Bone Marrow Transplant Program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. "But I ended up really liking health care — and I love my job at LTFU."
Barry's responsibilities include scheduling return visits for former transplant patients as well as triaging phone calls from patients and their hometown doctors. When patients return to Seattle for a visit, Barry works with the clinicians to write medical orders.
"The patients are amazing people," Barry said. "What's challenging about working here is that the patients are very sick. But what is so rewarding is how positive they are — it is really an inspiration."
Her career with the transplant clinic began when she received a tip from a friend who was leaving her own position as a team coordinator at the clinic to attend medical school. She urged Barry, who was then working at UW Physicians, to apply. Barry's time as team coordinator gave her a complete picture of the entire transplant experience.
"It's nice that I had the experience of working with transplant patients when they first come through the door now that I'm following them after the leave," she said.
The interaction with patients isn't the only aspect of her job that has caused her to rethink her original career plans, Barry said.
"We're a very close knit group here," she said. "The nurses, staff and physicians are great. I think it says something about the quality of the work here that patients continue to come back for so many years after they are treated here."
And what about her photography? "I still really enjoy that," Barry said. "But being here is definitely what I want to be doing right now."
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