 Greetings Kaiser Permanente Health Care Career Scholars. My name is Dan Field. I'm Executive Director of Community Health here at Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Well we never thought we'd be getting together by video. This is strange. We didn't want to miss an opportunity to extend our congratulations to you and tell you what a great job you've done preparing yourself for this next phase of your educational journey. You finished high school strong despite a really challenging circumstances. You applied for and received the Kaiser Permanente Health Care Career Scholarship and now you're ready to take that next big step on your journey off to college. Wherever that takes you, whether that's here in your community, whether that's another part of the state or whether that's another part of the country, we want you to know that we're behind you every step of the way. We need you. We need you to finish your education, to complete your college degree, to pursue a health care career and to come back and support your family and your communities in the best way possible by serving them with your expertise, your passion and your commitment to improving the health and well-being of our communities. So as you head into the summer and prepare to head off to college, please know that Kaiser Permanente is with you every step of the way. This scholarship is just a signal of our support for you, for your educational and your personal journey. And in the rocky times ahead, whenever those may come and for whatever reason, please know that there's a lot of us rooting for you, rooting for your success and here to help you on your next step. So congratulations and best wishes for a very successful college career. Take care. My name is Deanna Deadley and I am the Vice President of Human Resources for Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you and congratulations. You applied for the Kaiser Permanente Scholarship and you were one amongst many. The fact that you've received it is an outstanding achievement. It shows that the hard work that you've put into your education thus far has paid off. We are hopeful that this scholarship will help you continue to pursue your education and that one day we find you joining the Kaiser Permanente family. Our organization is very supportive of students like you and we look forward to the talents and skills that you will bring to the healthcare profession. I myself personally know how important education can be. I was raised by a single mother and we lived in a challenging area in the city of San Francisco. And so it was through education that I was able to really become into my own, recognize how important education is so that I one day could be in a position to help others and that is one of the reasons why I have joined the Kaiser Permanente family myself. I truly believe in the mission of the organization which is to provide high quality affordable care to our members and the communities we serve. So as you move forward in your education, I wish you all the best of luck. Know that you have supporters behind you who are wishing you nothing but the best. As you move forward, life can sometimes throw you curveballs as I am now here recording a video as we go through the pandemic instead of being able to congratulate you in person. But please know your accomplishment has not gone unnoticed and all of us here in the Kaiser Permanente family wish you the absolute best. Congratulations again. Congratulations to our 2020 healthcare career scholarship recipients. I'm Wendy Watson and I'm the Chief Operating Officer for Kaiser Permanente Northwest. First of all, I can't be there with you in person. I wanted to send just a few thoughts by video. First of all, I am so excited for each and every one of you in this next phase of your journey. As I thought about what I wanted to share with you today and reflected on my own career path in healthcare, there are three things that really have been my life lessons that I wanted to share with you. The first is to embrace the calling of a healthcare career. Truly is a noble profession, which you know, with the situation we're in right now in the middle of the pandemic, you can see the value and the importance of being in healthcare. There's so many different ways to give in healthcare and there's so many different career opportunities. So one of the things that I would like to share is while you may have a view of where exactly you want your career to go in healthcare, my recommendation would be stay open because there may be doors that open for you that you never expected. The second is embrace adversity. I have lived a life that's been filled with all kinds of challenges, adverse situations, and I would say that each and every one of them has made me stronger as a person and as a leader. And as I think even now of what we're going through with the coronavirus situation, while there are so many challenges associated with the situation, there are also so many great learnings and opportunities for all of us as we go through this. And so life is really filled with unexpected surprises and challenges and my guidance would be just to embrace that and take all of the learnings that you can out of it. The third is as you're striving to achieve your healthcare career goals and other goals for yourself and life is don't forget to live life in the present. Surrounded by you each and every day are amazing things that could be inadvertently missed or overlooked if you're too focused on the future. So while it's fantastic and wonderful and definitely supports striving for long-term career goals, just remember to look around you and appreciate what you have today. Thank your family, spend time with your friends, spend time in nature, all of these things will keep you healthy and happy as you're going down your healthcare career path. I am confident that each of you will do great things with this healthcare career scholarship. I'm excited about the opportunity to work with you in the future to see the impact that you're going to have on the world and in healthcare and just enjoy it. This is a wonderful opportunity. It's an amazing career, wouldn't have any other and I just wish you the best. Congratulations again. Congratulations Kaiser Permanente healthcare career scholarship winners. My name is Ruth Chang. I'm a family physician and the chief people officer for Northwest Permanente Medical Group. So I certainly wish that we were celebrating together in person, but given our extraordinary circumstances, that's not a good option. However, I am delighted to share a brief message with you. Like many of you, I'm a first-generation immigrant. My family came to the United States when I was four years old. And thanks to my parents, we spoke primarily Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese at home. Now, to be honest, as a kid, I didn't necessarily enjoy going to a sorority school for Chinese every single week. But as an adult, I'm so grateful that my parents insisted on it, and that along the way, I was able to study more Chinese and pick up medical terminology. It's one of those skills that I have in the exam room that has proven itself to be invaluable time over time. I feel that my patients trust me more and that I provide better care. And the study and research backs that up. So it does show that patients who have a shared language with their clinicians and providers have overall better care experience as well as better outcomes. So if you have a native tongue, a second, third, fourth, or maybe even fifth language, keep up those skills. Invest the time in learning the medical terminology. This is so valuable what you can bring. I know you're going to study super hard to be the best doctors, nurses, technicians, and dentists that you can be. And so don't forget about the language. And you know what? If you don't speak another language right now, this is a great time to learn, too. Our patients are becoming increasingly diverse in the state of Oregon and in all of the United States. So having that shared language and being able to connect with the communities we serve is an incredible starting point. And it's a privilege and an honor to take care of people as a family doctor. But for me, the greatest joy is being able to connect with my patients. And that starts with a shared language. So again, congratulations. I hope you're all feeling incredibly proud of yourselves, because you should be. And good luck with all of your future education. This is Ruth Williams Brinkley. I'm the regional president for Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Congratulations to each and every one of you on your graduation from high school. You have worked hard. You are ready to move on to the next phase. And you are graduating at a time when you're making history. Not too many of us have lived through a global pandemic. In fact, I would say most of us have not. But yet you're here in history at this point in time. You will go on to do great things in healthcare. You will go on to do great things in society. And you will go on to make a difference in your community. And it all starts with this next phase of life. And I know that you're anxiously looking forward to it. And I know that you're eager to go through this and to see what comes next. We're very proud of you and what you've achieved. We're very just grateful for your commitment to healthcare and to making a difference in people's lives through providing them with healthcare. Whether you become a doctor, a nurse, a researcher, a technologist, or anything else, you will make a difference because healthcare always makes a difference. So I want you to know that we're proud of you. We're counting on you. Kaiser Permanente is counting on you. And society is counting on you to make a difference. Congratulations and all the best to each and every one of you. Hello, Kaiser Permanente scholars and awardees. Congratulations as being one of the 80 plus students receiving the Kaiser Permanente Healthcare Careers Award this year, 2020. My name is Amelda DeConis. I am an internal medicine physician and also the president and CEO of Northwest Permanente, which is the medical group that helps to take care of our Kaiser Permanente Northwest members and patients. I am so honored to be delivering this message to you and I am so excited for you. I came to this country when I was 10 years old and dreamt for a long time of becoming a doctor. And while there are many challenges in the path to achieving our dreams, I know that each and every one of you with your family and friends' support have the support of Kaiser Permanente and have the support of our communities really when I say to you that from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you. We thank you for your dream. And more importantly, we hope that we will continue to be part of your life's journey to support you to become what you want to be as a healthcare worker, as a healthy and thriving citizen of our community. I know this pandemic is challenging. It is very hard on many of us and I know that we will all get through this together. Take heart, pay attention to what's happening around you. Keep a diary, listen, learn, see how healthcare workers are responding, how our communities are pulling together because you will need to take these learnings with you. You and future generations and the current generation going through this pandemic will bring that empathy, that compassion that is so, so needed in our communities whether or not we have COVID and I'm counting on you to keep the flame of learning and kindness and love burning through as more than ever. We need it, we need it from you, KP Scholar, awardees and keep on dreaming. Thank you.