(This week The Columbian-Progress spotlights Marion General Hospital interim administrator Alaina Cedillo.)
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Ocean Springs Aug. 8, 1979.
Q: Where did you attend school?
A: I went to South Forrest Attendance Center in Brooklyn, Miss., then Forrest County AHS. I went onto college at Pearl River Community College, then got my doctorate from Ole Miss and my master’s degree in public health administration from Southern Miss.
Q: Where all have you lived?
A: I’m a small town girl from south Forrest County, just north of Wiggins. When I graduated from college, got my first job, made a little money and built a house in front of my mommy and daddy. That’s where I’ve been ever since. I lived in the different towns for college, though.
Q: Where do you work? Tell us about your job/company.
A: I am the interim administrator at Marion General Hospital. What I see my position entailing and so far what I’ve been successful in thinking is that my role is to remove the barriers for the people that are employed here to take the very best care of our community and our patients as possible. I’m the person who does the heavy lifting whether it’s financial barriers, people barriers, process barriers—whatever it is I try to move or manage those so that the expert health care people that we have can do the best they can in the roles they have. They’re very talented and very skilled, and they just need somebody to help them do what needs done.
Q: What led you to your profession?
A: I’ve had some really great people influence me in life. I started at White’s Pharmacy in Wiggins at 16 working there. I just loved pharmacy, loved interacting with people and loved helping people. I knew that I didn’t have the stomach for blood, but I felt led to do something in health care to help people. I really enjoyed working in a pharmacy so I decided to become a pharmacist, which led me to hospital administration. That first experience as a job showed me I really enjoyed helping people. Elderly people would come in and it was so nice to be able to help work them through a problem or a situation they were having.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: It’s never the same. Every day is absolutely different. I’m the administrator, but I am a pharmacist. So some days I’m sitting in this office, some days I’m staffing the pharmacy and other days I’m in Hattiesburg collaborating and coordinating as a health system. One minute I could be helping someone figure out their bill and the next I could be visiting a patient and taking their dirty linen for them.
Q: What was your most unusual job?
A: My most unusual and least favorite job was at Security Check in Oxford. I did not like debt collection. When people wrote a check that bounced, Security Check took those on behalf of the businesses, then called to try and collect it from the person. I was tasked with convincing people to pay their bad debt. I had so many situations where people thought I was calling for some other purpose or would get angry, so it was interesting but not necessarily fun. I was not good at it. We got paid commission based on our collection, and I never got bonuses. They’d give me a sob story and I’d tell them we won’t call for you for 30 days.
Q: Who is the person who has been most influential in your life?
A: There can absolutely not be one person. For every season of my life there have been a variety of people, whether it be friends, family or supervisors. In college it would be different than when I was a pharmacist than when I first got my leadership position than it is now. I’ve been very lucky to have great friends, family and support.
Q: If you could relive one day from life, what day would you choose?
A: The day my grandmother, Shirley, passed away. I was young, I was dumb, and I didn’t realize what family means. It was my first year of college. My mom called me and told me I needed to get up to the hospital, and I did but I didn’t do it fast enough. I didn’t go in there and say all the things I would have like to have said. I didn’t realize what was really going on. I think about that day a lot.
Q: What is your spouse’s name? What does he do for a living?
A: Marcos Cedillo. He’s a nurse, but he’s a nurse that transitioned from bedside care to being an EPIC analyst, which is the electronic health record that hospitals use and coincidentally our hospital uses. So he’s a nurse that works on computers. He’s a consultant that does that, so he travels around the country.
Q: Do you have any children?
A: Carmen is 5, and Javier is 2.
Q: If you could have anything for your last meal on earth, what would it be?
A: It would be for Jourdan River Steamer to finally reopen and have some of their steamed crab legs. They have the best steamed seafood you’ll ever have. It was washed away in Hurricane Katrina, but a year ago the owner started rebuilding. He keeps posting on his blog about it and I can’t wait.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: I would probably travel to Italy because I’ve never been there. I have done a tour of Europe before but didn’t make it to Italy or Greece or anywhere over there. Italy has always been on my ‘Hey, let’s go there once the kids are grown’ list.
Q: What hobbies/activities do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Spare time with two kids is few and far between. I love to read. That’s by far the thing I love to do the most. Coupled with reading is traveling. I don’t have to travel far; any different place that I haven’t been is fine with me. A book and a new place is what I prefer to do when my husband and I get time off. The Alchemist is one of my favorite books. It’s about life, but since I’m a pharmacist I was drawn to it because of the title.
Q: What do you enjoy most about working in Columbia and Marion County?
A: It feels so comfortable. I am from a small town, and it just feels so homey. It feels like I was born here. Everybody knows everybody, everybody is kin to everybody, everybody cares about everybody, and it’s just so home feeling.
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone from your life or history, who would it be and why?
A: It would probably be my grandfather, George. He passed away when my dad was 13, so I never met him. I would be interested to know what kind of person he was. I’ve always wished I knew who he was.
Q: How would you like to be remembered?
A: I would really like to be remembered as somebody who helped people, somebody who cared and somebody that when you ask if I can do this favor for them that I was able to step in and help.
Q: What moment in your life has had the biggest impact on you?
A: It would have to be when my first child was born. I had my entire life until I met my husband planned out. I had no intentions of having children. When I met my husband, all that changed. Then we had Carmen, and the responsibility of another life completely changed my priorities and who I thought I was. Becoming a mom completely redefined who I saw myself as. I know it’s cliché and everyone tells you that, but when you have your first and you look at them, you’re like ‘Oh my goodness. This is mine, and I’m responsible.’ It’s a game changer.
Q: Would you rather read a good book or watch a good movie and why?
A: A good book, but I do love movies. I’m an avid fan of movies, not necessarily TV. I prefer movies over TV. "Dead Poet’s Society” is my favorite move and “Hoosiers” would be second. I played basketball at Pearl River, so I’m a big basketball fan and “Hoosiers” has a great story.
Pictured Above: Alaina Cedillo is the interim administrator at Marion General Hospital after beginning her career as a pharmacist. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
