Staff Award for Excellence - Martha Rhodes

Martha is the gem of the administrative side of the podiatry service. If something needs to be done, figured out, or fixed, Martha is the person to accomplish this. She is responsive to our concerns and is willing to do the critical thinking required to help achieve personal and team goals. She is a true advocate of our division and without her, we would truly not function as well as we do.

Martha has had an integral role in the development and organization of our podiatry fellowship. Because of her background and common-sense approach to helping our team, she has co-authored several articles with the team. I think this is unique and unusual for a team to want to include their administrator in articles, but her knowledge and contribution were meaningful enough to make her a well-deserved co-author.

Martha is very knowledgeable, a team player, open to learning new skills, shares her ideas, and promotes learning - a true example of what a great administrative assistant looks like. If she doesn't know how to do something, she is going to find the answer. If a fellow admin needs assistance or we're short staffed, Martha is always willing to be a team player and offers her time to assist.

Martha is a natural leader. Anytime we encounter an administrative or education problem, she takes the lead. She seamlessly coordinates three educational programs: the monthly podiatry education series, annual Diabetic Foot Update, and monthly MEND clinical/research conferences. She serves and organizes podiatry QIPs team. Martha is the podiatry wellness champion and curriculum developer. As the team lead, she has been instrumental in the communication and facilitation of plans as podiatry increased its clinical presence, now at West Ann Arbor, Brighton, and plans for Northville.

Martha has taken a leadership role in Patient Safety initiatives within the podiatry service. She was recently selected to the 2020 Patient Safety and Quality Leadership Scholars Program (PASQUAL). Upon completion of this program, she will have a better understanding of quality improvement theory and practice, and how to implement ideas within the podiatry service.

As part of the Podiatry Fellowship program and a University of Michigan Value, Martha coordinated a Wellness manual and a Wellness Wednesday newsletter. This is a personal passion of hers so she puts her whole heart into it. It's been an added value to everyone, not just specific to her fellowship program.

Martha is a talented multitasker and superbly provides administrative support to all of the podiatry faculty, from calendar coordination to pre-award grant work. With her masterful organizational skills, we have been able to successfully start a unique podiatry research fellowship that has to balance the education and administrative responsibilities of both CPME and GME. CPME has stated that our fellowship is the benchmark for how a podiatry fellowship program should be organized and this is largely due to Martha’s efforts and skills.

Martha goes above and beyond - staying after hours, partnering with faculty for weekend programs, and never shying away from tasks. She has helped organize and oversee the annual Podiatry Foot Consortium conference which is held on a weekend without any hesitation.

Martha currently serves as a member of the Podiatry Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Team. As a member of this team, she aids in the continuous review of Michigan Medicine podiatric processes as a means of improving standards of care.

Martha has made several more contributions to our division which includes implementing a new process to manage our MEND weekly research and clinical conferences, ensuring all information was updated and accurate before we sent conference announcements to the Internal Medicine community. She developed an organized method and checklist for setting up a conference and procedures for hosting our guest speakers.

Martha has developed a better understanding of our Multidisciplinary Postdoctoral Training Program in Basic Diabetes Research and has implemented a process for which we use to grow our postdoctoral training program. She is the administration side of this program, organizing the candidate interviews, on-boarding and off-boarding trainees, maintaining database, and assisting the PI with the grant renewal. It was approved on the very first round, receiving high praise.