The Anniversary Spotlight highlights an employee celebrating a work anniversary at UPMC every month.
After 32 years with UPMC, Pauline Moran could give an endless stream of advice. But looking back on her career, she can narrow it down to four words: “Life is too short.”
That phrase rings true when she closes her eyes to think about her career. Suddenly, she is a freshman in college, sitting in a classroom at the University of Pittsburgh. Back then, she thought she was sure about her decision to major in biology at first, but soon decided she wanted to go in another direction.
“I soon realized I really did not want to memorize all those long names,” Moran said, laughing.
After a short break, Moran quickly pivoted career paths and went to school to become a radiology technologist. This two-year program at Presbyterian University Hospital – now known as UPMC – was exactly what she needed at the time.
In the several years that followed, Moran went back to college to study accounting and IT. She joined UPMC in the fall of 1989 doing CT scans in the pediatrics department. She was only working part-time while raising her children, but when she went back to full-time employment, she realized inpatient care was not her passion.
After pivoting to the administrative side and spending eight years in the hospital’s cardiac reading room, Moran heard about a new opportunity: UPMC Enterprises.
“The work I was doing at that time was the perfect segue for me into UPMC Enterprises because it was based in radiology, and the radiology background I had was very helpful to the NGI project.”
After five years, Pauline is still at UPMC Enterprises today serving as a product analyst – a role that she says keeps her on her toes.
“As a product analyst, I keep projects running on a day-to-day basis as well as the application itself,” Moran said. “I do a lot of the admin work. When we have a user problem, they usually come to me first and if I can’t solve them then I reach out to the developers. We’re always doing something different and coming up with new ideas.”
Despite the fast-paced aspects of the role, Moran said she wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, she was basically trained for it, thanks to her previous career in radiology.
“There are a lot of moving parts and keeping track of it can be overwhelming, but that’s how radiology always was on any given day,” Moran said. “It can be very crazy, but I think if it wasn’t, it would be boring.”
One of the products that Moran supports is Safar, a provider-to-provider tool. It is working on projects like these that give Moran a reason to keep going.
“Safar is a great product in that you know we’re helping,” Moran said. “I’ve been there with the medical staff, and I’ve seen how stretched they are to take care of patients. With telemedicine and the products that we’re rolling out, it makes it easier for them to do their jobs. They don’t have to leave their chair, and everything is organized in front of them.”
For Moran, she pictures the physicians she used to see running from ICU to ICU, hurriedly caring for their patients. She likes to imagine them using the applications she helps support through UPMC Enterprises – allowing them to care for patients virtually, thus making their lives easier.
“When I put it in that perspective, it’s like, alright, I’ll do what I need to do today,” she said. “I’ll do whatever I can today to help. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.”
This motivation goes hand in hand with Moran’s personal philosophy: life is too short.
“If you’re not enjoying why you’re getting up every day and going into work,” she said, “you need to make a change. It’s never too late to be happy.”
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