Note from the ACDIS Associate Editor: One year with ACDIS

by Carolyn Riel

Just like everyone else, the older I get the more I realize how quickly time passes. It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been with ACDIS for one year, and it’s even harder for me to believe that half of that time (or just under half of that time) has been spent working remotely.

2020 has been an off year (to say the least) for everyone. There’s been a whole lot packed into the year: a pandemic, social movement, still upcoming election, and the Tiger King phenomenon—just to name a few. But even with all the events happening in the world, it’s been a journey on a personal work level for me as well.

Back in September 2019, I started my first day with ACDIS thinking “what in the world is CDI.” With a writing background and The CDI Specialist's Complete Training Guide, Second Edition, I started to put the pieces together in that first week. “Ah, it has to do with insurance. Got it.”

But, obviously, I didn’t get it.

Such a big part of my first few months with ACDIS was just learning about CDI, what it is, why it’s important. Terms like “ICD-10-CM,” “encephalopathy,” and “clinical indicators” were used so commonly among everyone I was working with and talking to, but it was foreign a language to me. The long lost phrases I learned in my high school French classes seemed more relevant to me. But the more I listened and the more I talked with people, the more I learned.

Slowly I started writing a few news articles here and there for the weekly newsletter CDI Strategies. I remember my first interview for the Journal, with ACDIS Editor Linnea Archibald sitting with me and understanding everything our interviewee said, while I thought, “I need to make sure I get every single word written down because there is no way I’m going to have enough context clues to figure this out again later.”

Two months rolled around and I wrote my first feature article on the IPPS final rule. Each week I started to write a little bit more of the newsletter and wrote more articles for the Journal. I started to get more responsibilities and really began to figure my way around in ACDIS.

And then, like for everyone else, COVID-19 hit.

We started working remotely towards the end of March, and I don’t think anyone anticipated being out of the office for as long as we have been. We had to figure out how to keep things going, and I had to figure out on a personal level how to continue growing in a career that was still so new to me.

Thankfully, I have a team of absolutely amazing people. Brian, Melissa, and especially Linnea helped to keep me on track and learning, giving nudges to push me just outside of my comfort zone but always making sure to ask if I had too much on my plate.

Since my start with ACDIS one year ago, I now (most of the time) write all of the news briefs for CDI Strategies, get to talk to lots of folks and write articles for the Journal, I’ve worked with the 2020 CDI Week Committee, moderated webinars and appeared in some of our virtual events, worked closely with the new Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, and most recently written the 2020 CDI Week Industry Survey Report.

This has been a whirlwind of a first year stepping into a career with ACDIS. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my amazing team and those of you in the CDI community who are so welcoming and make me feel at home.

Thank you for a fantastic first year, with hopefully many more to come.

Editor’s note: Riel is the associate editor for ACDIS. Contact her at criel@acdis.org.