Focus on Staff With Priscilla Schmidt

Focus On highlights faculty, staff, students and researchers at the UC Academic Health Center. To suggest someone to be featured, please email uchealthnews@uc.edu.

Priscilla Schmidt is a senior administrative assistant in the division of cardiovascular diseases at UC.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in tourism from Michigan State University 1975 and then moved to Cincinnati with a group of friends from Michigan and lived with a Christian creative arts group initially. She was a tour wholesaler in Cincinnati and held a number of jobs—a bookkeeper at Terminex, as well as working for a local promotions company and a bank—before finding her way to UC.

When did you become an employee at UC?

"I started Election Day, November 2004, as a senior administrative assistant in the division of cardiovascular diseases.”

What are your major duties?

"I order supplies for our research lab groups, pay bills with purchasing cards, process timesheets for UC and corporate employees and more. With the reorganization of UC Physicians and UC Health, my job flexes with the needs of the new organization. Have always been a ‘jack of all trades’ to fill in where needed.”

Do you think your tourism degree helps with your job here?

"I don’t think so, but going to school, in general, helps you learn to learn.”

What is the favorite part of your job?

"I enjoy the variety of people—such an amazing ‘brain trust’ of creative-minded researchers, highly skilled cardiologists and wonderful support staff and vendor contacts.”

What do you do when you aren’t at work?

"I enjoy lap swimming and do so almost every morning at 5 a.m. I was surprised when I became a cardiology patient within my own division. Stay heart healthy! My college-age daughter and I love horses and photography which we often combine—if she is riding I’m taking pictures and vice versa! One of my landscape photos was in the Spring Grove 2011 calendar and one was in the running for the 2012 calendar. Family, church, gardening and pets round out the free time.”