Seattle Children's

Wendy Renneke

Wendy Renneke, R.T.(R)(CT), FAHRA, is a seasoned healthcare leader based in Seattle, Washington, with over 33 years of experience delivering exceptional patient care and driving excellence in healthcare operations and management.

In an exclusive interview with MedTech Outlook, Renneke shared her perspective on emphasizing radiology expertise, leadership development, team trust, and fostering high-quality patient care through mentorship and collaboration.

Early Inspiration and Career Foundation

My passion for medical imaging was first cemented as a Radiologic Technology student in 1992 while participating in a summer externship at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska. It was this firsthand experience as part of a team of Healthcare Professionals committed to meeting the critical needs of the beautiful and diverse peoples of Alaska seeking high quality medical services, and witnessing the measures taken to provide transportation (many times thanks to expert bush pilots!) and access to care for the people who inhabited remote villages, rural and urban areas alike throughout Alaska that made an indelible mark in my pursuit to serve people, grow my skills within Radiology, and set the stage to embark on my own path to becoming a dedicated servant leader.

Since then, my 33-year career has primarily been in UW Medicine Radiology and positively impacted by several UW Medicine leaders who recognized my potential (in particular, Dawn Vincic) and supported building my radiologic repertoire to include various modalities such as X-ray, DEXA, Mammography, Interventional radiology and CT. This progression led me to my first exploration into Radiology Leadership as a CT Lead Technologist and then as the Multimodality Radiology Supervisor over UW Medicine Ambulatory Imaging centers in 2014. After eight years of operational ambulatory imaging oversight, my career again pivoted to a Primary Care Practice Management role within UW Medicine in 2022.

Leadership, Growth, and Team Engagement

Primary care Practice Management provided me with new growth and perspective on the patient and provider experience, beyond the images we produce in Radiology. Humbling myself to a new beginning, learning and partnering in the endless work that goes into meeting the needs of the patients we serve in Radiology, before they arrive in Radiology, afforded me new appreciation for the complexities experienced by primary care providers in their pursuit of diagnostic services across service lines to meet the needs of their patients and provide answers to endlessly complex medical circumstances.

“Trust, transparency, psychologically safe environments, and recognition for the efforts of your team members builds engagement and commitment to their roles and responsibilities.”

The growth and perspective I gained in my UW Medicine Practice Management role was only surpassed by the amazing support and trust I received from my administrators Chesna Briceno, Chantilly Watson and Pranika Laing, who entrusted me with driving clinical excellence expectations forward, utilizing change management capabilities, developing team potential, rebuilding administrative trust that had been lacking prior to my arrival, mentoring others to success, protecting the fiscal responsibilities and wellbeing of clinic service lines, and providing excellent leadership to the individual clinicians and team members I supported as they cared for the patients we were honored to serve on a daily basis.

Whether in Radiology or in Primary care, upholding high standards for clinical excellence begins with building trust with your team members. Trust, transparency, psychologically safe environments, and recognition for the efforts of your team members build engagement and commitment to their roles and responsibilities. When team members believe in your commitment to them, their skills, and their capacity to achieve and grow, they, in turn, work to build that foundation of trust with our patients.

I consistently reinforce the importance of setting high expectations for quality of care and performance through individual monthly rounding while also committing myself to never micromanaging the expertise of others.  I commit myself to hiring candidates for their skills, knowledge and growth potential, which also requires a commitment to providing clear, constructive feedback when necessary to partner with team members in achieving their full potential.

Returning to Radiology: New Challenges and Growth

In July of 2025, an opportunity to return home to Radiology presented itself to me as a Diagnostic Radiology Manager at Seattle Children’s Hospital. This was yet another unique pivot, as I had never been employed in a fully pediatric environment. I now find myself both leader and student as I lean into the importance of learning from the expert technical knowledge of my team members while also confidently providing strong people leadership and direction to the Diagnostic Imaging Department.

My key objectives when transitioning into a new leadership role are communicating effective patient care workflow expectations to my team members and reinforcing expectations for high quality delivery of care via timely constructive feedback as well as praise and recognition, creating relationships with stakeholders in service lines supported by imaging, listening with humility and remaining mailable as I learn and lean into my leadership experience at the same time. Intentionally seeking historic perspective regarding where my team has been, where we are now, and learning how I can best support the successful trajectory of our department into the future is another key objective as I integrate into a new team. I fully believe a new leader cannot plan for the future of a department until they have performed their due diligence to learn where their team has been, their successes as well as failures and what they learned from both as they plan a new path forward.

If I were to offer advice to emerging leaders, it would be to create an environment where you actively listen, receive constructive feedback just as much as you offer it, ensure your team and the individuals within it are seen, heard, valued, and recognized for their own expertise, along with their growth opportunities. I encourage new leaders to engage team members within the processes that support their organization’s purpose through transparent communication and collaborative seeking of perspective. I believe highly engaged and collaborative teams not only understand why we do what we do – they embody a passion for the quality of the care delivered and take great pride in their individual impact on patient outcomes.  It is my responsibility and honor to seek out potential and actively participate in developing the individuals and teams I take great pride in leading.