By Matt Skoufalos
As a child, medical imaging manager Jennifer Kirkman dreamed of becoming a space shuttle pilot for NASA. The clearest path she foresaw to that end goal led through the U.S. Air Force, where she would have to distinguish herself from among an elite cadre of fighter pilots in order to get on track to become a shuttle pilot. Kirkman was serious enough that she began speaking to U.S. Air Force recruiters in high school about enlisting.
“Then, I took a step back and looked at the bigger picture, and realized that I am really sensitive to motion sickness, and no one’s going to hire me to fly anything if I’m puking,” she said. “That forced me to re-evaluate my path.”
Throughout high school and college, Kirkman, who grew up on a family farm in North Carolina, worked as a veterinary technician. Part of her role there involved positioning animals for X-ray studies, the film from which she was also trained to hand-develop in an ersatz darkroom made from a converted shower in the clinic bathroom. Kirkman was intrigued by the process, which comprised her first experiences in what would become a medical imaging career.
“I like knowing how things work,” she said. “I’m curious. And I think that’s why I enjoyed X-ray school so much. We got into the physics of, ‘How do you do this? How do things work?’ I find that so interesting. I’m always wanting to learn something new.”
When she continued on to Greensboro College to study biology, Kirkman learned about a hospital-based radiography program that would allow her to earn her bachelor’s degree and X-ray certificate at nearby Moses Cone Memorial Hospital while studying at Greensboro.
“Hospital-based programs at the time were very strenuous,” Kirkman said. “We ended up doing a lot of things independently, but I worked after my clinical hours as a student technologist, so I was working independently before I graduated. It was a natural extension of that.”
After graduation, she continued to work at Moses Cone until a position in interventional radiology opened up at Wesley Long Hospital, where she remained for the next 15 years of her career. When her supervisor retired, Kirkman took over the position, and held the role until she decided to transition out of frontline supervision. In seeking a managerial role to support her direct-care colleagues, she took an imaging manager position at High Point Medical Center, where she works today.
“I wanted to find a place that had camaraderie amongst the teams, and really had good systems in place for support,” Kirkman said. “I am blessed with amazing leaders that really want to teach the people around them. They’re building us up so we can build our skills, and that is an environment in which I thrive.”
Those supports were tested early, as Kirkman assumed her current role in September 2019, just months before the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic swept across healthcare systems the world over. As challenging as that time was, she knew it could have been far worse if she hadn’t found a position and work environment for which she felt so well suited.
“I am exactly where I was meant to be for that stage of my life,” Kirkman said. “Everybody was stressed; everybody was short. But being in the place where everybody has that camaraderie with each other, and all the teams could support each other, that made such a tremendous difference during that time period.”
Kirkman has found a comparable level of camaraderie among the broader professional network of medical imaging managers through her participation in AHRA, the Association for Medical Imaging Management. As an imaging manager at a small-town, 350-bed community hospital, Kirkman values the opportunity of her AHRA membership to connect her with the institutional memory of her peers in the organization. She said she frequently leverages its searchable forum and connections with other imaging managers across America to answer questions that arise in the course of her work.
“We have an incredible nationwide membership, and people from all kinds of environments will say what’s working for them: nonprofit, for-profit, union, government; all the different types of spaces, we have folks from there, and so you can get their experience to pull from,” Kirkman said. “I love the team and the connection with some of the folks that I’ve met over the years. The organization as a whole really is doing a lot of work to forward leadership education.”
Jennfer Kirkman went sightseeing and saw the Grand Canyon after one recent AHRA conference in Phoenix.
Beyond the value of her membership, Kirkman also gives back to AHRA, volunteering at its annual meetings, participating in the curriculum committee and aspiring leaders track, and embracing opportunities for travel to network with her colleagues. When a recent annual meeting was held in Anaheim, California in 2017, the Kirkman family took the trip together, and tacked on a couple additional days to do some sightseeing.
“I really want to do more,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, but if we don’t do it, we’re setting ourselves up to fail, and setting up the people we’re relying on to take care of us to fail. I want to leave the world a better place than the way I found it. If we’re not actively trying to make something better, it’s slowly slipping away. You have to be the change you want to see.”
Kirkman has never stopped learning and changing. In 2020, she graduated with her master’s degree in health administration from Pfeiffer University; this year, she will apply to be an AHRA fellow. It’s all part of her lifelong commitment to continuing education.
“I want to learn something new,” she said, “and if I’m not doing that, then I don’t want to become unrelatable. I want to be connected, and if I am not continually learning and trying to be a better version of myself, then I am going to find myself disconnected, and I don’t want that. When you love what you’re doing, then you can push yourself out of what you thought was possible.”
Jennifer Kirkman and her husband, Reed, celebrated their 15th anniversary on a Disney Cruise.
Kirkman and her husband, Reed, have been married for 22 years. They share an acre of the family farm with their daughter, Eliza, and niece, Abbie. Together, they care for two dogs and 10 chickens, along with a farm’s worth of pine trees, which they cultivate. When they’re not at work or home, the family enjoys traveling together, especially to Jennifer’s favorite spot, the Outer Banks. There, she is most at peace re-reading J.R.R. Tolkien among the dunes.
“There’s just something about sitting in your beach chair under your umbrella, and listening to the waves,” Jennifer Kirkman said. “It’s such an incredible factory reset.”
Jennfer Kirkman says that her love of the beach comes from her granddad. “Best legacy ever!”
Off The Clock Nomination
