Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences: An award-winning attitude

By In the Loop • January 15, 2019

Francisco Abeyta discusses his thoughts on working at Mayo Clinic and the humbling experience of receiving the Individual Award for Service Excellence and the Mae Berry Service Excellence Award. Christine Adame, who nominated Abeyta, joins him on the podcast.

Mayo Clinic is a unique place: the culture, the values, the people. "Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences" explores the experiences of Mayo Clinic staff as they navigate life personally and professionally. Individual experiences make each person unique. Sharing them increases understanding of others and ultimately contribute to finding connections, belonging and inclusion at work.

In this episode, you'll hear from Christine Adame, manager of medical transcription, who shares her excitement at nominating Francisco Abeyta, an Information Technology analyst, for the Individual Award for Service Excellence. This award is given to those who are high achievers and know how to tackle difficult challenges. Their good work inspires and motivates others. Abeyta received the Individual Award for Service Excellence and won the Mae Berry Service Excellence Award. The latter award, endowed by Leonard Berry, Ph.D., is given to those who act selflessly to meet the needs of patients and approach them as the highest priority.

Listen as Abeyta shares his thoughts on working at Mayo Clinic and the humbling experience of receiving these awards.

Read the transcript, edited for length and clarity, below:

NARRATOR: In this episode, Chris Adame and Francisco Abeyta talk about service and recognition at Mayo Clinic. Chris and Francisco celebrate Francisco's Individual Service Award at Mayo Clinic and the surprise announcement of the Mae Berry Award winners.

ADAME: Just yesterday, I was in a situation where I could help somebody outside of our department, and I honestly thought, "What would Francisco do? Francisco would help them." So I did.

In order to be considered for the Individual Service Award, you have to be at Mayo Clinic for three years. We've been counting the years and looking at when his anniversary was to see when we could do this because, from the moment he arrived here, he hit the ground running.

He has continuously been of service to people whether or not they're in our department. He doesn't think twice about assisting somebody if they need help.

ABEYTA: Winning the Service Award was an honor. The whole reason I wanted to work at Mayo Clinic was because of the values that Mayo Clinic supports and promotes. All of the people who work here live [those values] every day, as well.

ADAME: We were discussing the Franciscan Values, and, Francisco, I think your name is perfect for that. I think you were named perfectly because you do convey the Franciscan Values every day in what you do. You inspire us and influence us. It's such a good reminder — even after my 22 years — of what we can do. It's the small things — helping an employee who's having an issue and, even if they're not in our department, helping someone.

ABEYTA: The whole story of how Mayo Clinic was founded made an impact on me, as well, because it was founded in a time of crisis, in a time of people helping other people. With all of that, I felt like this is someplace I really want to be.

When you walk around the clinic, when you go to lunch and you see the patients —they're all here because they have to be here.

ADAME: That really reminds me of one of the points that Dr. Kenneth Poole made when discussing the award that you received. It was that we, at one time, had a major outage happen, toward the end of the day. All of the profiles for our transcriptionists were somehow deleted, meaning they could not work. They weren't set up to work, and overnight in the hospital, we are very busy. The Emergency Department is very busy. We have critical care patients that need the dictation to be done immediately for hospital care. Francisco and some other staff members stayed late and diligently worked to rebuild profiles.

We come to find out that Francisco had worked 28 hours straight building profiles. He was doing it in a systematic way that would lessen the impact on patients. He was making sure that the profiles of transcriptionists who did surgery notes or ED notes were built first, so that they could get to that work first.

If we did not work overnight, patient care would have been impacted. They came back the next day, Francisco was still here working all night, building these profiles. And that was in his first year, I believe.

ABEYTA: That night that all the profiles were deleted was kind of a crazy night. I have to say, this was definitely a team effort. I worked with a lot of people who were on my team at the time and many other teams across the enterprise that night. The first couple of hours, I was more concerned that it was something I did to mess it all up because I was fairly new.

But we worked through it. We got the people online and a lot of credit goes to the transcriptionists who were coming on at night. We had transcriptionists across the country who were starting at 1, 2 in the morning, and they were very flexible and very helpful. As soon as we got them online, they started pounding away at the keyboard and getting things done and knocking it out.

It was really a moving night for me, as well, because we had a lot of moving pieces. It was a big effort on a lot of people across the country. It made me feel like it was the right place to be because it feels really wonderful to be part of that kind of teamwork and organization.

ADAME: You were nominated for the Service Excellence Award, which automatically then puts you in the running for the Mae Berry Award. There were two people chosen that day. None of us knew who would receive the award. A lot of us from our department were there. Francisco's family attended. His beautiful wife and children and his wonderful parents were there, as well. I got to have a ringside seat to see all of it.  Francisco, I know when they called your name that you were one of the winners of the Mae Berry Award, you seemed kind of stunned and didn't move right away. One of the directors of the event actually came up and kind of tapped you on the shoulder and said, "OK." I'm wondering what was going through your mind at that moment.

ABEYTA: Winning the May Berry Award was a shock for sure because I hadn't really expected that the winners would be announced there. Even if I did, I wasn't really expecting that it would be me. Again, it's an honor and it's humbling because I know it's not one person. It's not just me. It's all of us. It's everybody I've had the pleasure working with and working for in a team effort. I'm honored and humbled to be a representative for this award for the people I've had the pleasure of working with.

Believe it or not, I'm not really a person who likes the spotlight. Actually, having my kids there was kind of comic relief afterwards because the things that they were impressed with were interesting.

When they announced that I had won the Mae Berry Award, all of my friends and co-workers at my table and at the table behind us, they were so nice to come. When we got home, my son was like, "Wow, that whole table — when they announced you won the award, they went crazy."

ADAME: We were all screaming and yelling. We were so excited.

ABEYTA:  It was nice, and that's the kind of thing, too — that's what I mean. I'm only there because of all the people there around me. If it wasn't for all of you guys, and who I work with now — it's an ever-changing thing — and it keeps us going.

ADAME: Dr. Wyatt Decker discussed where the Mae Berry Award originated from. He said that Mayo Clinic is very team-oriented. We love our teams and do great work as a team. But he challenged us to recognize individuals on the individual accomplishments, as well. I truly do think that it is important to recognize employees for their efforts collaboratively and individually.

ABEYTA: Being nominated for the Service Excellence Award and the Mae Berry Award is humbling. It's an honor because working at Mayo Clinic is more than a job. It's more than a career for most people.

We come to work every day. Sometimes, the day goes by so fast and we're so busy that it's easy to overlook the people working next to you. With these kinds of awards, it's inspiring to promote the feeling that I have now of being recognized to do that for others. The more we promote that with each other, as well, it only benefits all of us as an organization.

ADAME: At all levels, you inspire us, and we're grateful for all that you've done to help us. Many of my employees have come to me almost every day to say how grateful they are for the help of Francisco.

ABEYTA: I would not be receiving these awards if it were not for all of you guys.

NARRATOR: Mayo Clinic employees across the institution go above and beyond daily. Take some time to recognize your colleagues by nominating them for Above and Beyond, Karis and our service awards. Recognition can go a long way.

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