by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | July 05, 2022
From the July 2022 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The Association for Medical Imaging Management (AHRA) will be having its 50th annual meeting in Phoenix over July 10-13. HealthCare Business News spoke with AHRA president Kimlyn Queen-Weis, about what the meeting will hold and about her own professional background.
HCB News: Who or what inspired you to follow a career in healthcare?
Kimlyn Queen-Weis: 33 years ago, if you had asked me if I saw myself having a career in healthcare, I would have said no. I have to give my mom all the credit for getting me started in what has become an incredible and rewarding career as an imaging professional and radiology administrator.
As a senior in high school, I was still undecided about what I wanted to do after graduation and my parents could not afford to send me to college, so in late winter/early spring of 1989 I was trying to figure out if I could afford college or what I would be doing come June 1989.
Then one day my Mom came to me with a copy of the classified ads from our local newspaper, and asked me if I knew anything about radiology or what the Marion General Hospital School of Radiology was, and if I thought it was something I would be interested in checking out.
So I called the number in the classified ad to get more information, scheduled a day to go to the hospital to observe in the radiology department, asked for an application to the 2-year hospital-based radiology school certificate program, and here we are today. Call it destiny, call it fate, call it a happy accident; either way, I am forever grateful that my mother found that classified ad in our local newspaper that day.
HCB News: How did you first become involved with the AHRA?
KQW: I first became involved in the AHRA in 2003, when a peer suggested I explore obtaining my certified radiology administrator’s (CRA) certification. Before then, I had no idea the AHRA existed and I definitely did not know anything about the CRA. I began researching the AHRA and the CRA, started studying for the exam and joined the AHRA in 2004 when I sat for my CRA certification exam. That was a very pivotal moment in my personal and professional life and one that I encourage all Imaging Leaders to embrace.
HCB News: What was that journey like, from joining AHRA to becoming president?
KQW: It has been an amazing, rewarding, and humbling journey. From the moment I joined the AHRA I have been given countless opportunities to not only grow and develop as a person, a radiology administrator and healthcare leader, but to also help support the growth and development of future radiology administrators and healthcare leaders.
