From RN to Service Designer When I tell people I am a RN or previous Hospice Case Manager, they typically nod in approval or gratitude. When I elaborate I am transitioning to become a service designer, many look at me with a head tilt as if I asked a question. So what exactly is ‘service design’? And more specifically, what does ‘service design’ mean in the context of healthcare? These have been the overarching questions in my conversations, papers and projects over the past year while studying at Savannah College of Art & Design as a MFA Service Design student. My response to the recurring head tilt has changed and continues to change as I learn (and unlearn) in this space. I did not expect anyone to understand why I would abandon the security of climbing a clinical ladder, much less truly share my vision of bridging service design to healthcare. Now my personal definition of ‘service design’ requires a full mad*pow 20 minutes and then some. It has evolved and yet come full circle, back to the industry I served pre-SCAD and plan to return following. I strongly believe healthcare professionals and designers have a lot in common in our practice. We are ideally empaths, delivering person and human-centered services with excellent bed or project-side manner. We hold the power to make only incremental differences in healthcare as we linger in separate silos, but together, now that’s a beautiful marriage for systemic change.