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Maria Colan, 33, of Hartford works as a clinical office assistant (COA) at UConn Health\u2019s Outpatient Pavilion and its Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. She\u2019s been in the role for three years.<\/p>\nMaria Colan, 33, of Hartford works as a clinical office assistant (COA) at UConn Health\u2019s Outpatient Pavilion and its Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. She\u2019s been in the role for three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it here at UConn Health,\u201d exclaims Colan. \u201cI always wanted to work here since a little girl. My Dad worked here for decades as a janitor before retiring. My Dad is very proud that I work here at UConn Health too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colan recalled, \u201cMy Dad picked me up at work for the first time and was amazed by how big and beautiful the UConn Health campus has become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her Dad, Romulo Colan, often reminisces about his interview for his UConn Health job and how he was so sure he wouldn\u2019t be hired because he did not know a word of English.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet, he was hired on the spot,\u201d says Colan. \u201cUConn took a chance on him.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her COA role, Colan works daily directly with patients checking them in and scheduling their appointments and imaging tests, and organizing their patient referral needs to specialists. She specifically assists with meeting the needs of Endocrine Neoplasia and Bone Health patients.<\/p>\n
Colan, who was born in Peru, came to the United States at just age one.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019ve lived here in Connecticut my whole life,\u201d shared Colan who is also very proud of her Hispanic heritage which also helps her and her patients additionally in her front-desk role in the clinic as a COA at UConn Health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Spanish, as we spoke it in our household,\u201d said Colan. \u201cMy Peruvian family is very close knit and we keep our traditions going strong. Soccer brings us together, especially whenever our National Peru soccer team is playing on TV. World Cup is always very special for us and insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love working with people,\u201d says Colan. \u201cUConn is different. It\u2019s its own special community. The providers are awesome. I love the nurses. I also love my co-workers who are great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colan recommends UConn Health as a great employer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recommend working for UConn Health in any job here. UConn is full of possibilities for sure. You never know what can happen for your career growth here,\u201d stresses Colan. \u201cA career here in health care and at UConn Health is definitely rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyday Colan loves helping her patients and also reducing their stress levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor our patients we try to get them in for appointments as soon as possible,\u201d said Colan. \u201cI like witnessing how happy they are when we can meet their health care needs, are able to put them more at ease, or even reassure them that we will call them if we have an earlier appointment opening or a cancellation making one available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colan concludes: \u201cIt makes me happy to make our patients happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaria is an outstanding COA in the Neag Cancer Center working within the Endocrine Neoplasia clinic,\u201d says Caryl Ryan, RN, chief operating officer for UConn John Dempsey Hospital and chief nursing officer for UConn Health. \u00a0\u201cWe are so fortunate to have her and our other hard working and passionate COAs as part of the team at UConn Health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI love it here at UConn Health,” says COA Maria Colan. Find out why and the special reason she’s \u201calways wanted to work here since a little girl.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":190766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,2388,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-190743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-healthcare-workforce","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 00:36:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190743"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190773,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190743\/revisions\/190773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/190766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190743"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=190743"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=190743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}