Humans of NHC Cindy Snelgrove Chief Clinical Service Officer

Can you walk me through a day in your life as a CCSO and what are some of the tasks you do?

I do a variety of work every day. I look over and write policies, procedure, and grants for

starters. I do a lot of research on medical guidelines such as OSHA and Medi-Cal. I research

and write emergency and workplace violence procedures, so clinics are prepared in case of

emergencies. There are a lot of tasks to do. I look over many programs ranging from

telemedicine, infectious disease, care management, etc. and in these programs, I give

instructions on tasks that need to be done, work as teams, and planning on our next steps. As

as well as these tasks there are always meetings for something that I need to attend.

What interested you in your current career path and do you have a certain memory that made

you realize?

Yes, I do, so when I was 10 years old, I was helping my dad put up Christmas lights and one of

the lights ended up shattering and I had gotten glass in my eye. Growing up my family did not

have much money and we had to make difficult choices such as do we eat this month or go to

the doctor. I ended up going to an ophthalmologist and when I got there, I noticed in the waiting

room that the patients there were all from low income-based incomes like me. Seeing this I

knew I wanted to go into the medical field, especially a non-profit and advocate for patients.

After high school I started my medical journey first at the public health department as a teen

pregnancy peer educator then later I worked as a LVN and after a couple of years I became a

RN. While working as an RN at the hospital I noticed the struggles nurses had to face such as

not having enough help and having to work extra hours due to the high volume of patients. After

finishing a shift at the hospital, I noticed on my way back nurses leaving being exhausted and

holding their backs because of pain from overworking. From this I knew I wanted to work more

in the medical field where I could advocate not only for patients but also for nurses and support

them as well. So, I worked in many different aspects of the health field and different events lead

to many different directions until I finally settled here on an administrative field of health care.