research assistant

graduate researcher

patient access representative

postdoctoral fellow

research coordinator

UTHealth Houston

Overall poor employment experience. Received barely any training and lower than average pay despite education + direct experience. Department turnover was so high that understaffing was a constant issue – the present staff were all inexperienced and forced to wear multiple hats without the appropriate means to support the workload (neither in human capital nor organizational resources). Despite multiple requests – both formally and informally – for either additional staff support or an increase in compensation to match the workload, no significant change was implemented over the course of 16 months. It did not feel like management knew how to set up new employees for success, and instead set them up for failure by assigning an egregiously heavy workload without the proper resources or mentors to learn from to be able to maintain it. 

Upon resigning, I communicated to management that the primary reasoning was extreme employee burnout. No single individual should be a long-term solution to any organization’s lack of appropriate resource planning, especially when that employee’s overall workplace satisfaction and mental health were bearing the brunt of the burden. I communicated this feeling multiple times to management before leaving, which seemingly fell upon deaf years. Despite my personal and significant rationales behind quitting, I was still asked to “please reconsider to minimize the disruption this would cause [to the department]." An efficient workplace should not and would not crumble if one person leaves. As for the mental health aspect of it, I believe the exact feedback I received was, “Well, we’re *allll* experiencing mental health issues from the pandemic.” 

So, that reaction to me was tone-deaf, dismissive, and unpromising. Other than the widespread institutional disorganization, there were a few pros: it was a very diverse workplace, there’s interesting and important research happening there, and there’s an admittedly strong emphasis on team culture (though everyone operated under a mutual understanding that the workplace itself was chaos). I was also at one of the regional campuses with a flexible hybrid schedule, which was a plus. Unfortunately the cons outweighed the pros at the end of the day, and it did not feel like the people doing the job were valued unless they were heading out the door. Lots of work to be done here before the institution is a well-oiled machine so I would not recommend unless you are looking for that kind of work experience.

The culture of the department is the responsibility of the leader. My philosophy is simple; I am here to serve my staff, community, leaders, organization, and the city of San Antonio.   I motivate my staff through formal and informal education.  For example, I work with an employee in an outreach scenario; I am cognizant as to how adept the employee is when presenting to a client. For instance, does the employee pick up the subtle cues from the client that says I am ready to move-on or I do not understand?  My goal with education is an attempt to create a heightened awareness of the employee’s by building confidence and challenging their current skill set in order to grow. My commitment to the employees’ personal development builds trust and report along with a productive independent employee.  
Another strategy I use to build an environment of cooperation and professional growth is storytelling and creating rituals.  Sharing through storytelling builds confidence in the team by promoting small victories, sharing hard experiences and receiving different perspectives to move to a more positive outcome.  Creating rituals, for example Monday briefings, drives the point of task achievement and identifies limitations. More importantly rituals provide structure and add meaning to the daily routines and work processes. 
Finally, the use of delegation of task to cultivate team play within a department is articulated in clear long-term standards and goals to provide the employee the ability to maximize performance and personal development.  For example, the regional consultants I manage have the responsibility of creating an action plan for the areas they cover.  I use their expertise with the area culture, politics, and defined need to concentrate our efforts.  This task delegation empowers the employee to develop a clear plan, receive feedback, and clarify the organizations greater mission at the regional level.

UT Physicians is a very good company to work for, they offer a lot of benefits and great healthcare. Upon first working at UT Physicians, I enjoyed every bit of it until things started to drastically change with upper management. Within the first 3 months, the POA had left and taken a job elsewhere and about 6 months later another POA came along and gotten things straight with the clinical staff. The call center where I worked took the most brutal beating. We specifically get blamed for every little thing especially when nurses or MA's don't want to do there job, we are left stuck telling patients unwanted/inefficient responses. The management does not exactly understand that, they just go along with it. We get commended as a call center for taking a numerous amount of call but get called out individually on trivial things that could thoroughly be explained through a hands-on meeting or tutorial verses a hand out or by word of mouth. There's favoritism amongst co-workers and management.  For the most part, the management in the call center does not provide security for the agents because they do not get recognized for the exceedingly hard work they put into assisting with patients and from the clinical staff. Upper management does not defend his team, it's more of a "this is what I say is going on now and that's how we do it." No thorough explanation or example given as a group, just a person walking around saying this has changed and that has changed and expecting us to remember all of that while multitasking between taking appointments and routing calls. The supervisor is rarely at her desk when you need her because she wants to help everyone else except for her team which needs the most help.

A typical day starts off with checking my email to see if there is anything my boss wants me to do or any outstanding emails they may have sent late in the previous day that i didn't get to read.

They depending on whether or not I process ARIC Visit 5 study samples I will go to Methodist Hospital by bus or walking to pick up the samples and bring them back to process. Processing takes a good hour and a half, then I store the samples in nitrogen.

After this is completed I enter all the paperwork for the samples into a database and save this information. Next, I will look for ways to help or continue to another project. (freezer maintenance, robot maintenance, other projects, package handling, freezer inventory, etc)

During the day, anydown time I have I ask if there is anything I can do to help. I also like to work on projects that are due later on so that they do not pile up. At the end of the day I will label the tubes for ARIC Visit 5 processing so that it doesn't have to be done in the morning and any missing labels can be made on my computer before I am ready to process.

This is a typical day on the job.

My managment and co workers are all very nice, and great people. There are people from many different culutures and they are a blast to work with. This has to be the most enjoyable part of my job, aside from doing research that will help others.

I also enjoy working at the University because it is a learning facility and even though I am an employee they still educate me on health issues both public and personal. I can then take this knowledge apply it and teach it to others. I find this rewarding.

The hardest part of my job is finding more work to do after it is all done.

UTHealth pays better than most in the public university arena, good benefits, decent time off policies. BUT the upper administration is out of touch with what really happens overall with their support staff. Most of the time, management would rather that you NOT communicate with them at all. In the area I was in, upper management added at least two unnecessary levels of supervision to processes. Created job titles for people in areas where those folks had no clue about the departments they were "promoted" to. Too many "pet projects" and not enough concern about what workers really needed to learn for their jobs. Additionally, we were not provided with the adequate budget needed to get our jobs done. Frequently, projects were implemented by people with no clear plans for understanding how business processes would impact their people. Overall, the people at the support level (at least in my area) were there for the $, but not really happy about the work environment. From 2019-2020 (even with Covid), a lot of quality people left because they were not appreciated after years of service. UTHealth used to be a very supportive place to work, but the last few years has seen a change in management who really do not want to be involved with the departments they lead. Very sad to see it. Bottom-line, if you get hired here, work the job for some experience and move on. 

I worked here for five years and really enjoyed the physicians, co-workers, and all other training, HR, radiology employees, etc. I was a CSR II and never had a dull day in my life at UT. I was in charge of all incoming calls, verification of Insurance, all aspects of scheduling, responsible for pre-authorizations for all trauma patient follow-ups. I did other things like; sent out new patient paperwork, fax, incoming mail, ordered supplies as needed. Many other things were involved in keeping the office going, but my best part was my co-workers as we all worked as a team in everything we did, and an extra plus a free lunch provided by drug reps. What I really learned and loved was their customer service etiquette. Always had ongoing customer service training on how to treat the patients and ongoing classes like CPR training paid for by the job as they wanted all employees to be certified. The hardest part of the job was just trying to multi task scheduling patients while getting the next days verification done at the same time. Also, a difficult task was needing to work in patients last minute due to priority reasons or waiting for pre-auth's to arrive via fax in a timely manner, so that the patient's visit went as smoothly as possible the next day. All in all I loved my job, sometimes stressful was well worth it at the end of the day.

During my tenure in the research department at UTH, I found limited opportunities for professional growth. Unfortunately, the compensation structure, largely reliant on grants, poses challenges for significant financial advancement. Additionally, there is a tendency for higher-ups to delegate tasks indiscriminately, leading to instances where I undertook responsibilities originally assigned to my coordinator, who subsequently received credit and a promotion.

Regrettably, such dynamics seem inherent to the system. While the role provides a valuable stepping stone to prestigious research opportunities, I recommend considering it as a one-year commitment due to the likelihood of being overworked and facing challenges related to fair compensation. It's noteworthy that some colleagues who attained ostensibly higher positions did not experience a corresponding increase in their pay grade.

Furthermore, the imposition of additional tasks without commensurate compensation is common, with attempts to frame it as an advantageous addition to one's CV. However, my experience suggests that this does not significantly enhance one's resume. My advice is to absorb as much knowledge and skill as possible in this role and leverage those acquired abilities in pursuit of future opportunities.

The benefits at UT Health are very good and they have offerings that I simply haven't seen anywhere else.  Outside of that, it is a good place to work but as is the case with any government organization, be prepared for a lot of bureaucratic red tape and a lot of inefficiencies that inhibit your ability to do your job.  That said, because most managers and leaders are aware of the issue, very rarely do they hold a person's feet to the flames over a deadline, and when they do, it most often is for an executive request.  There is also job security if you are competent (not necessarily great) at what you do.  Most times you have ample time to learn your position with the only real way to get let go or fired (in my opinion) is if you flat out don't do your work or don't adapt to the culture (of bureaucracy).   The culture can be infuriating (change management is a foreign concept at UT Health) but it is workable.  And given that there are genuinely great workers and leaders employed at UT Health, you can certainly do much worse than coming to work here.

-Since I have been with UT Health Science Center, the most valuable skill I have gained would be my ability to listen with true understanding.
-A typical work shift would be recruiting multiple volunteers, explaining our study and purposes for the research, followed by screening and consenting. From there I would conduct a computer-based study per participant, followed by a rapid HIV test.  I would then relay their results privately. Depending on the outcome of both results and how the volunteer reacts to those results, I would counsel them on safer measures to take care of their body and make necessary referrals, making sure they are aware of all aspects of possible health related issues that could be at hand.
-My management and co-workers worked hard and well as a team being that we were a small group of less than ten.
-The hardest part of this job was seeing the outcome of someone who has just found out that they are HIV positive and them not knowing or feeling like life can go on. However, as I am the one to relay this to them, I feel that I am there to comfort them and help them understand life does and will go on.
-The most enjoyable part of this job is when someone genuinely appreciates the care and heart that I have into them as a person.

All it takes is one bad apple to be the people manager for a large number of people, and the whole barrel will rot. My experience here changed greatly from the time I started to when I left, directly related to management. In particular, at the School of Public Health. The dean is a good person, but certain individuals running the show beneath him have made it very unpleasant to work there, with constantly changing goals and no clear purpose, no encouragement, and a very power hungry, clique based environment that is truly unprofessional. At least 50 people were affected by the change in middle management, and few people are happy. People have either been pushed out, asked to retire early, or been treated so poorly that they left. The gossip beneath the surface is rampant, and everyone feels that HR will not stand up for them. The staff members who replaced those who left are much younger, inexperienced, and much less diverse. Some might argue they have a fresh perspective, but in this case, that is mostly not true. I do not recommend working here if you have any other options at all. Though on a positive note, the benefits are good, and colleagues in other areas of UTHealth were supportive and professional. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Research assistant 4 salaries reported	$16.25 per hour
Graduate researcher 3 salaries reported	$32,833 per year
Patient access representative 1 salary reported	$20.50 per hour
Postdoctoral fellow 7 salaries reported	$61,078 per year
Research coordinator 8 salaries reported	$54,640 per year

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