WORKING@DUKE
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INAUGURAL STAFF MENTORING EVENT
Panelists who draw 200 Duke employees share inspiring stories about their careers.
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DUKE FOREST CELEBRATES 75 YEARS It grew from farm land 200 years ago to a premier research, teaching and recreational forest.
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Former employees return to Duke ast year, about 3,800 employees left Duke. Some left to pursue career opportunities or more money; others left to go back to school, retire or relocate. But many returned, including people like Michele Solomon. Tempted by $7,000 more a year, Solomon left Duke in March 2005 to work for a private laboratory in Raleigh. She returned last April and accepted a job at the Duke Center for Living, where she earns slightly less than when she left. “I realized that the grass is not always greener on the other side and that money isn’t everything that you need to be happy,” Solomon said. Duke hired nearly 4,900 employees for positions across the university and health system in 2005, according to Human Resources. More than 520 of those new hires included people returning to Duke. Based on exit surveys conducted from March through August of this year, most people – 36 percent – left for career development or promotional opportunities, the most common reasons former employees who returned during the same time period cited for coming back. Of those who leave Duke, more than 60 percent said in exit surveys they would consider working here again and would also recommend Duke to others. For Solomon, Duke was the only place she considered when she was laid off from her lab job in Raleigh after less than a year. “I probably would have left down the road anyway,” she said of the Raleigh lab. “There was no patient contact. I was on the phone eight hours a day, stuck in a cubicle. It was just a very different environment.” Solomon feels more connected to patients in her role at Duke. “I’m the first person patients see when they come in the door to check in, and I’m the last person they see as they schedule their next appointment before leaving.” Coming back to Duke was always part of Hazel Richardson’s plan. She joined Duke as a pharmacy technician at Durham Regional Hospital in 2001 after graduating from North Carolina Central University with a chemistry degree. She left Duke two years later to earn a professional degree in pharmacy.
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Top: Hazel Richardson, a clinical staff pharmacist with Durham Regional Hospital, arrives for work at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham. Bottom: Michele Solomon, a patient service associate at the Duke Center for Living, left Duke for a higher salary but returned less than a year later.
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I realized that the grass is not always greener on the other side and that money isn’t everything that
you need to be happy.” — Michele Solomon
After graduating from the UNC School of Pharmacy this spring, Richardson received several job offers before accepting a position with Durham Regional as a clinical staff pharmacist working at Lincoln Community Health Center, a primary care facility that serves the uninsured and underinsured population of Durham. “I interviewed with three retail pharmacies, all of which made higher offers,” Richardson said. “It’s hard to turn down more money, but for me it was more about quality of life. I have a one-and-a-half year old daughter and a husband, and this job offered me more stability than the other options.” SEE WELCOME BACK, BACK PAGE
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