Lendri Purcell and Althea Hicks: Jonas Philanthropies (Raise the Line)

Hi, I'm Shivani. Thanks for checking out our Raise the line interview series.

In which me and my cohost osmosis chief Medical Officer Dr Rishi Desai explore how to strengthen our healthcare system with some amazing leaders in medicine, technology, education and government and they have some great advice for people starting careers in healthcare as well.

I hope you'll watch these highlights and then go listen to the full podcast interview wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Doctor Rishi today on Raise the line.

I'm happy to be joined by two guests who work for the Jonas philanthropies. Uh The work from Jonas focuses on health care for nurses and veterans, children's environmental health and the overall health of the climate.

I'm really looking forward to learning more about what uh lend and have to say. Thanks for being with us both.

And do you mind just walking all of us through the path you, you took to getting to where you are now as vice president, I have always had my heart in social service work.

Um I started to teach for America. I was put in Oakland where I was a special ed teacher.

Got my master's in two teaching degrees. And I got a call from my grandfather that he was going to start a um charitable enterprise.

He was gonna auction off some art that had appreciated in value that he'd been very proud of and had over the years. And as he was moving into retirement, he wanted to give back and do something um, great for the world.

And so he asked if I wanted to sort of join in somehow. And he gave me a sort of a small budget at first to focus on um at risk youth in the East Bay area, which is what I focused on um youth um mentorship, um different different areas, school to work programs.

And then I went to work for price charities in San Diego. And slowly, I've been building my, my skill set from there and just, I've just stayed engaged.

I've always pushed us um to, to be as um broad thinking as we can and as progressive as we can. And it's been a great journey fia how did your path kind of wind up uh crossing with L's?

Well, uh Rishi, my background is in public health. And so um when I graduated college, I went and worked with Memorial Sloan Karan Cancer Center.

And there was a program with the National Cancer Institute. And then I also um moved into grants management.

So that's how I became involved in research. And then also I moved on to eventually work and uh earned my master's degree in public health and my doctorate in education.

And in doing that, I was looking for a position that actually allowed me to combine all of these skills together. So when I found out about this position, I applied and went through the process.

And thankfully, here I am. So that was a great experience and it really has helped me use all of my skill sets from those areas.

Uh So, with that in mind, I guess one thing I wanted to kind of flag is that a lot of our, our uh learners or listeners are future care clinicians or they're gonna be public health leaders like like the two of you are, do you mind just kind of sharing a little bit of advice perhaps for someone that's just starting in the field and they see the two of you are obviously well accomplished in, in your respective areas.

How did you get there and how does someone that's just starting out kind of falling in your footsteps? One thing I would say is uh remain persistent and uh definitely, you know, identify where you not necessarily just think you should be or think you wanna be but also be open to new opportunities as well.

Sometimes the opportunities don't necessarily come in the way that you expect them. So while you should have a goal, have a pathway, you know, have a plan, just be open to some of those new opportunities that might also be able to adjust your plan so that you will see the place where you thought you might wanna be.

You can actually get there sooner or you might get something even better. That's what I would add is um same thing being really flexible.

I thought I was gonna do education. Then this window opened to philanthropy and now I've become sort of an, an advocate um and an activist in environmental health and, and be open.

You don't know where you, your path is gonna lead, but cultivate mentors along the way and make sure you're keeping a list of people that can support you and keep up with those people cause you never know when you're gonna need help and support down the road.

And so find your mentors. Thanks for watching this preview of Raised Line to hear the full interview.

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