Bringing in the private perspective: From a children's clinic to state government

A Washington state pediatrician draws on her real-world medical experience to help her do the most good in the public health arena.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Nov. 18, 2002.

The Nation is their Patient
Doctors serve America at all levels of government. This occasional series explores how their medical background influences what they do.

Sometimes just one phone call can transform a career. In 1988, pediatrician Maxine Hayes, MD, MPH, was serving as the medical director for the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, an affiliate of Children's Hospital Medical Center in Seattle. She thought she had found her niche in her chosen field of public health.

She already had a long list of accomplishments -- from helping to build a 12,600-square-foot clinic in a medically underserved area of Brandon, Miss., to working as a physician adviser for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.

But then the call came. The Washington State Dept. of Health asked her to help promote passage of legislation to improve access to care.

Her answer -- yes -- launched her on a new career path that has culminated in her current position as Washington's top health officer.

It's a career evolution she never would have predicted. When she first started with the state health department, she thought of herself as on loan from the children's clinic and believed she would go back.

But after the legislation passed, she stayed on to manage a statewide system of preventive health services administered by 155 local health agencies. She helped with maternal and infant health issues, child and adolescent health issues, and family planning, newborn screening and nutritional services.

She was named state health officer in February 2000.

"I was not planning on staying in state government," Dr. Hayes said. "But once I got into it, I discovered you could do so much for so many people." [...]