Describe your vision for your career and your inspiration for pursuing this career path

My passion for healthcare began during my high school years while volunteering at my local community hospital. I found caring for patients to be very fulfilling, and discovered that I naturally have a comforting and reassuring bedside manner. Thus, I decided to pursue a career in nursing. Over the course of seven years in the healthcare industry, I have progressed from novice to a leader in the nursing field. I have been fortunate to be directly involved with many amazing cases and work in some of the country’s best hospitals. While I believe the United States has the highest quality healthcare in the world, I have grown increasingly concerned with many areas within healthcare, such as operational inefficiencies, supply and drug shortages, fewer providers, growing costs, and declining reimbursement. In New York City alone, seventeen hospitals have closed due to financial instability since 2000. Most notably, St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in the tony neighborhood of Greenwich Village filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed its doors on April 30th, 2010. 3,500 employees lost their job and lower Manhattan lost a level one trauma center. The health of the remaining New York City hospitals, as well as many hospitals throughout the United States, is not much better.

There are ways to build sustainable healthcare systems, and some hospitals have begun to improve performance by implementing best practices used in other business industries. An article this summer in the New York Times discussed a hospital in Seattle that adopted a new supply system used in manufacturing called “Lean” and made famous by Toyota. In this system, there are two bins for each supply; when one bin is emptied, it is sent back to central supply and an order is placed to restock the item. Their nurses now have the supplies they need, when they need them, and the hospital has reduced waste and cut costs. This is just one example of how business practices can be applied to healthcare to improve efficiency and reduce costs; yet many nurses and doctors feel that healthcare is far too complicated to be streamlined solely by business professionals. I believe the most appropriate personnel to turn around the healthcare crisis in the United States are healthcare providers with a business education. For this reason, I would like to pursue an MBA and develop the business management skills to help improve our nation’s healthcare delivery system.

An MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business will teach me traditional business methods that I can apply to the healthcare delivery system and help improve our nation’s hospitals. Immediately post-MBA, I would like to obtain a position as a healthcare consultant for a firm with a strong healthcare sector. My long-term career goal is to leverage my consulting experience, healthcare knowledge, and MBA from Fuqua to become Chief Executive Officer of a hospital or healthcare system, running a financially stable organization that provides high quality care. As a consultant, I would like to work on projects that address provider revenue cycles, clinical information systems, operating cost reduction, and service improvement. I want to investigate ways to reduce length of stay, use technology to improve the scheduling of procedures, and more efficiently manage inventory. By going into consulting after business school, I will have the opportunity to problem solve and work on solutions to a variety of issues across a broad healthcare provider spectrum, large academic hospitals to private physician offices. Although I have significant leadership and teamwork skills as well as industry knowledge, I lack the business foundation needed to apply cutting edge solutions to the healthcare industry. An MBA from Duke University will provide the business education, project management experience, and the professional network to become a successful healthcare consultant.

My long-term career vision is to leverage my consulting experience, healthcare knowledge, and MBA from Fuqua to become Chief Executive Officer of a hospital or healthcare system, running a financially stable organization that provides the highest quality care. As a healthcare provider with a business foundation, I would be uniquely situated to become a healthcare CEO. I would be better prepared and hold more influence then someone who is solely a healthcare provider or business professional. As a healthcare CEO, I could execute my vision to improve the bottom line without sacrificing patient care. The leadership, teamwork, and decision-making skills I have gained through nursing, combined with the problem solving skills developed as a healthcare consultant and the business and leadership education I would receive from Fuqua would prepare me for executive level leadership. I feel very fortunate to have spent my early career working in healthcare with some of the best doctors and nurses in the world. I hope to continue to pursue my passion for healthcare at Duke University Fuqua School of Business, enabling me to give back to an industry that has given me so much. An industry that is essential to the health and well being of our country and our world.