Blue Devil of the Week: Experiencing Both Sides of Duke

“When I first started at Duke, I was 22. My first position was as a health unit coordinator in Cardiology. That was a night shift, and I was in college at North Carolina Central University studying political science. My second position here, I worked for the Duke University Hospital Perianesthesia Care Unit. At that time, I was what they called a patient coordinator, so my job was to communicate with the surgical waiting room as well as the operating room. The operating room would notify me when the surgeon was ready for patients. Now, I’m pretty much the face of the Graduate Program here in the Program in Literature. There are daily interactions with faculty as well as current graduate students. We’re currently in our recruitment process, so there are a lot of questions coming from prospective students who have interest in applying to the program. Because I’ve worked on both sides of Duke, I’ve seen how things happen in medicine and how things happen in academia.

Duke has just really been a great place to work. It has allowed me to obtain a master of business administration in 2014 from Pfeiffer University. My plan is to return at some point and obtain my master of health administration. That draws me in particularly because of my experience in the health system, and I liked that and I miss that a lot, but I also enjoy working with students.”

Tiwonda Johnson-Blount
Assistant to the director of Graduate Studies, Program in Literature
19 years at Duke

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