{"id":232364,"date":"2025-07-02T13:12:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T17:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=232364"},"modified":"2025-07-02T13:12:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T17:12:49","slug":"leading-with-resilience-personally-and-professionally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/07\/leading-with-resilience-personally-and-professionally\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading with Resilience Personally and Professionally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cassandra Keola of Avon grew up in Bristol, and always wanted to work for the State of Connecticut. Ten years in, she still loves working for the state\u2019s only public academic medical center, UConn Health. She absolutely loves UConn, its sports, and her son attends UConn too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so proud of where I live and work. I bleed blue!\u201d Keola says, who is the epitome of resilience, and she even helps teach and spread resiliency across UConn School of Medicine, UConn Health, and Connecticut every chance she gets.<\/p>\n

As an Administrative Program Coordinator in the School of Medicine\u2019s Department of Medicine, Keola wears many hats.<\/p>\n

She supports the Chair of the Department Dr. Francesco Celi and also the Department\u2019s fleet of 300 doctors and 36 administrative members with clerical review support, but she is dedicated to the major undertaking of coordinating the intense 4th<\/sup> Year Critical Care Clerkship four-week rotations in the ICU setting for all UConn medical students.<\/p>\n

\"Cassandra
Cassandra Keola with fourth-year medical students in the Clinical Simulation Lab beginning their 4th Year Critical Care Clerkship four-week rotations. She coordinates this training for all UConn medical students (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These medical student rotations occur not only at UConn John Dempsey Hospital, but also in the ICUs of Waterbury Hospital, Hartford Hospital, St. Francis, and Connecticut Children\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese soon to be doctors have great mentorship in the critical care clerkship by attending physicians, residents, fellows, and nurses too,\u201d she says. \u201cThe rotation in the ICU is a very eye-opening experience for our medical students in the deep end of critical care medicine for the first time applying everything they have learned so far in medical school, including the vital importance of teamwork. The rotation is challenging and unpredictable. Many medical students may see their first very-ill patient code. We make sure we have a strong support system in place for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this ICU rotation, Keola says medical students also learn didactically in the clinical simulation lab and the classroom too, and the overall experience especially teaches them resilience to overcome the challenges they may face in patient care.<\/p>\n

In addition, Keola organizes the monthly Morbidity and Mortality conferences for the Department of Medicine\u2019s various Divisions that ensure high-quality care is always maintained, supports the administrative meetings, and chairs the Dept. of Medicine Administrative DEI committee.<\/p>\n

Personal Resilience<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In addition to helping medical students be resilient, Keola has overcome a lot personally too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to be a patient in the UConn Emergency Department \u2013 and I am an oncology patient,\u201d she says. \u201cI recommend UConn Health\u2019s care to everyone I meet, and remind them that we are not just a school but a whole hospital too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UConn's
UConn’s Cassandra Keola (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keola happily shares, \u201cThanks to UConn Health I am cured for 10 years now!\u201d Keola even facilitated UConn Health\u2019s young breast cancer support group before and during COVID-19. \u201cIt was great to encourage other women, and also learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, Keola says, \u201cI\u2019m a triple threat!\u201d She says growing up as a female, and Afro-Indigenous in Connecticut\u2019s Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe (American Indian and Black), it has not been an easy road for her and others with her backgrounds.\u00a0 \u201cHistorically, it\u2019s been difficult. But no matter what, we are still standing after being through a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her resolve as a result?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what I do, and what I\u2019ve done, I have always wanted to have perseverance and resilience,\u201d she says. \u201cI have always wanted to stick up for others or those who were ever bullied. So, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is a form of advocacy, not for me, but a way for helping other people persevere. I remind everyone that while we are all different, we can all co-exist at work and outside of work. It is our differences that make us so uniquely wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UConn
UConn medical school’s Cassandra Keola celebrating with fourth-year medical students the exciting start of their clinical rotation in the ICU setting (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keola loves the diversity of the workforce at UConn Health that she first witnessed when working initially in Employee Health at the beginning of her UConn career. \u201cI got to meet a lot of people working in occupational health and have seen our diversity first-hand. UConn Health is a state hospital, and we really are here for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also loves another special thing about working at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can come to UConn and do a good job, and move yourself forward in your career. There is equity here! Everyone gets a fair chance and is treated the same across the board whether you are a UConn Health patient, a faculty member, a staffer, or a student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keola\u2019s passion for advocacy and equity also shines in her ongoing volunteer work.<\/p>\n

She is a Council Member for UConn\u2019s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, John Dempsey Hospital\u2019s Diversity Council, and her Department of Medicine\u2019s DEI Committee. She also lends her time to participate in the ongoing ODI Coffee Break discussions.<\/p>\n

Keola: whose Algonquin name means: Small Bear Warrior; is also a proud, persevering, enrolled, Board Member of The Golden Hill Paugussett Tribal Nation in Connecticut. \u00a0She\u2019s been working as a Board Member for the past two years on UConn and UConn Health\u2019s Tribal Education Initiative<\/a>. Its many collaborative projects focus on student success, curriculum, indigenous teachings, storytelling, and even patient care by the UConn Pepper Center of the UConn Center on Aging helping with the resilience and healthy aging of members of Connecticut\u2019s 5 recognized Native American tribes. The UConn Tribal Education Initiative\u2019s agreement is the first of its kind on the East Coast between Tribal Nations and a university.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s historical! I can\u2019t wait for it to come to fruition!\u201d Keola concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Resilient Administrative Program Coordinator Cassandra Keola of UConn School of Medicine\u2019s Department of Medicine <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":232480,"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":[1715,1868,179,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-232364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-meds","category-uconn-health","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-27 10:31:36","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\/232364","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=232364"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232486,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232364\/revisions\/232486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/232480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232364"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=232364"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=232364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}