Through Healing and Coaching, Jen Suckow ’24 Commits to Elevating Others

Whether it’s in the operating room or coaching others in the workplace, Jen Suckow’s committed to seeing others succeed.

Suckow’s been a physician assistant for more than two decades and currently works at OrthoCarolina, where she primarily assists with hip and knee replacements. During her time in health care, Suckow’s grown as a leader and manager, eventually supervising others and looking for new opportunities to grow her skill set. Nearly ten years ago, she met with an executive coach to talk about her career path in medicine, but she quickly realized there may be a path for herself in the coaching field too.

So, in 2015, she enrolled in the Executive Coaching certificate program, part of Queens’ Master of Science in Organizational Development (now the Master of Science in Talent and Organizational Development) degree program.

Still working as a physician assistant, Suckow was now able to coach others in the healthcare field. She loved it so much that after a few years of coaching, she decided to come back to Queens and finish the MSTOD degree.

“I’m certainly a life-long learner, and intellectual curiosity makes me interested in how to better myself and how to help others succeed,” she says. “That’s why the program was so enticing to me. It really focused on the people side of organizational health and how to empower and give agency to people in the workplace. That’s at my core – to help see others succeed and see the best in themselves.”

Now set to graduate in May 2024, Suckow is armed with even more knowledge to elevate her coaching skill set. She continues to work at OrthoCarolina, but now she’s also partnering on a new business venture that will focus on coaching healthcare workers.

“It’s not only about talent acquisition in health care but about helping physician assistants and physicians partner better together,” she says. “It’s not only about utilization but about building a better work-life cycle together. It’s imperative right now that we find a way to manage better with increasing shortages of health care providers.”

The Queens MSTOD program has never had more relevance in today’s marketplace. The program focuses on helping businesses optimize their most valuable resource – people. Students gain knowledge in theories, models, and frameworks of talent and organizational development.

“I could’ve never have forecasted that this as a career path would necessarily be advantageous in medicine because I didn’t know it existed,” Suckow says. “Once I started the coaching, I realized there were ways to help other roles in an organization and the theory and science to support it. Post-COVID, this is needed more than ever.”