<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy and here with me is Nathan Nathan please introduce yourself hey everyone my name's Nathan hail I'm a current administrative fellow at Mayo Clinic and um just really excited to be here talk more about Fellowship experience and grad school experience and hope I can help [Music] we're so happy to have you with us this evening Nathan thanks for joining us so you have a bachelor in healthcare administration a lot of people it seems like they have a bachelor's in something and they transition to healthcare administration later did you know you wanted to be in healthcare administration right from the beginning so for me I I was very fortunate to find out early on that I wanted to do healthcare administration but it wasn't always the plan but for me it started out as I knew I wanted to be in some sort of healthcare related area um but I knew I didn't want to be on the clinical site itself and so I started initially with a public health degree at my undergrad and for that degree we were required to take an intro to healthcare administration class so I took that class and within a week or two I was like okay this this is it it's calling me and haven't looked back since I was very fortunate in that regard undergraduate was in healthcare admin and then I loved it so much that I continued on into master's degree doing healthcare administration but that was kind of like the initial interest wanting to be involved in the healthc care scene but not wanting to play a clinical role wanting to be part of like decisionmaking though and helping with um improving processes and quality and and whatnot excellent that that's good for you I know it's always challenging when you have to switch Midway for for some of our I want to ask about that um one of the things I've been wondering is when you get your you know Bachelor's in healthcare administration and then you get your Masters in healthcare administration do you find yourself learning lots of new things in the master's program not necessarily I'd say that it's a review in some regard but it's at a higher level and it is still beneficial now there was some crossover where I'd be in a healthcare finance class and funny enough I actually had the same textbook that I used from undergrad and so in that regard it was nice cuz I saved money I kept the textbook from undergrad so that was really nice to to use that again but there there were two different learning environments like for an example an undergrad it was learning all of it for the first time in grad school it was a confirmation of what I had already learned but adding on to it so adding more details and then on top of that a lot more case studies in grad school that wasn't something that I was anticipating and it was something that I was very grateful for because because I find that postgraduation I use the case study model in my head a lot when I'm trying to solve problems and so it's been interesting to see how school has played a role I think in the moment it's kind of like you're tied to the classroom and you're ready to spread your wings and fly away as cheesy as that sounds but once you get to the field you realize oh wait like the stuff I was learning I can see why I learned that now it's so important and everything and so so yeah some crossover but I wouldn't say I have like any regrets or anything of doing both Healthcare admin because I think if anything it just helped me learn it maybe faster in the grad school setting and understand it faster but I still have plenty of questions I'm a curious person nice that's great though that's really good and then can you give us an example of what that looks like because I'm you know just we're just starting to go over cases in uh business school and so what does it look like when you apply them in terms of the thinking process you said that you apply from your cases that you went over in the real world what does that look like yeah I think for so I I think every student you ask is they might have a different answer depending on where they went to grad school with University of Utah at least they were very intentional on using case studies from real life experiences and so the faculty one thing that I loved about my experience there was the case studies that we went over in class were from real life experience of the faculty from when they were working in hospitals leading hospitals and so a lot of times what it would look like is they would give us this real world scenario we would our homework would be to solve the case and then come to class with our Solutions but then it led to open discussion like I thought of this oh I didn't think about it that way well I thought about this oh I didn't think about it you know really good discussion and the teacher was able to say like oh we tried that but it didn't work out and then the end of the class would be the ultimate decision that the teacher did make and so it's cool just seeing like the full circle because you were so invested in the actual case but as far as like transferring that to work now the models that they used were very helpful for me and so I think it's a Six Sigma model Define measure analyze improve control but that's one that really helped me and so like if I'm in a scenario where I'm trying to solve a certain issue I'm working on a project and I just need to kind of get my bearings then I fall back on that okay Define the problem measure opportunities analyze improve control like what is the step rather than going right to the solution having a rubric has helped me a lot University of Utah had a specific outline for case studies as well that focused on identifying like key stakeholders important facts to consider and then also considering alternative Solutions rather than just jumping right to your recommendation and I like that too because it gave me it allowed me to strengthen my I'd say my critical thinking muscle so instead of just like oh obviously it's this I had to consider oh but now that I think about it that actually wouldn't work and so Alyssa as an alternative solution if XYZ happens kind of thing and I liked that and I found that in my work today I use that as well where I consider other Alternatives and then ultimately come down to one solution and I'm not saying that's a university Utah exclusive thing that's all I have to speak to since that's where I went but that's something that I've found myself actively using in the real world um as I'm in the fellowship I think that way of doing the cases is is pretty special where it's things that the faculty actually have EXP experienced yeah yeah because that that's a big deal that's really nice yeah and that was something that was like appealing to me with University of Utah I wanted to go to an mha program that had people who worked in the healthc care field I think there's pros to I mean obviously there's going to be Pros to any program you go to for grad school but that was just something that stood out to me and it was something that I was looking at pregg grad school and in postgrad school looking back on it I still stand by the belief of like oh yeah that was so instrumental in my growing and learning experience so really appreciated that and I think too the idea of how they taught you the how important the process was like you said like not jumping to that end point because yes that is like I don't have you gotten your Six Sigma uh Green Belt yet I haven't you know it's funny I paid for a program to get it virtually probably a year and a half two years ago now and I I made the mistake of doing it while I was actively fulltime a full-time student and so it kind of got pushed to the back but I still have like the credit to do it and so I just need to do it now but I've I've learned practices in the classroom setting and I know classmates who took we had a Six Sigma um green bell option to take like you could take that class and it just didn't align with my schedule but I know students who did do it and I want to do it it's on the healthcare admin bucket list if you will yeah of course yeah because it's like a lot of that what you're saying is like the most important I felt like was the most important parts of it is the stuff that like yeah there's like the statistics and like some of the the Frameworks that are cool yeah but it's the idea that you need to like force yourself to like walk the process like continuous Improvement mindset like the stuff you're saying is like the most important part so no exactly yeah so you came out of you know grad school it seems like you're really well prepared they seems like they had a really good program and then you you know you have some experiences of course but then you decide to go for a fellowship can I ask what was your reason for applying for a fellowship did you consider not doing one how did that work yeah oh no absolutely so for me it's interesting I have a bit of a unique experience in that I didn't know I wanted do a fellowship until the deadline so for Mayo Clinic specifically I turned in my application 2 days or no no I decided I wanted to do the fellowship two days before the application was due and then I turned it in a day before it was due and I luckily already had letters of recommendation available because I was I was window shopping I was like I I think I want to do it but it wasn't until like two days before that I was like okay I made my decision I'm going to apply kind of thing it's going to be different for every person but for me the reason a fellowship was appealing was I was coming to the close of my grad school degree a year into the program and I still hadn't found that area of healthcare that I wanted to work in I felt like I still wanted to learn more I mentioned earlier I'm a curious person and I think a lot of people can relate to that at least people I've talked to where you know it's it's interesting I think going into the grad school program I was thinking this is what I do to find out what I want to do in healthcare but instead I learn more about Healthcare and I had even more questions about what I wanted to do so it it's kind of like a good problem to have but I I wasn't I didn't have a firm path like a clear Direction on what I wanted to do and so a fellowship was appealing to me because it offered just more exposure to healthcare and specifically a rotational based Fellowship was what was appealing to me because getting that further exposure and then on top of that getting exposure to specific departments and so the fellowships that I was looking for and applying for were all rotation based and that's just what I was interested in I have friends who are in Project based fellowships and I also think those are great I think it's going to be very personal for what you're looking for but for me I wanted a rotation-based one so that I could be somewhere to get more exposure to different areas and different departments to further help my I guess my path and and get a clear idea of what I wanted to do in healthcare ultimately and so with that leaving it up to the day of for for the Mayo how many did you apply to then if I missed it let me know but how many was that no you're good that's another I'm also kind of unique in that regard so I apply to two fellowships Okay that is pretty unique that's one of the the lowest one we've heard is one dang it oh almost had it so close yeah and and the funny thing is is this other one I applied to I didn't get far in at all and so it really wow yeah no I I didn't and so it's interesting to see the night and day difference like one I mean it works out and I got the job and the other one like I I had an a virtual interview and that that's all that happened but for me the reason I I was very mindful of what the number of fellowships I wanted to apply to I wanted to do a fellowship at an organization that I could see myself working at post Fellowship I didn't necessarily want to do a fellowship just to check it off the list like okay I did a fellowship I can add that to the resume now I'll continue looking for work and I'm not saying that's how all fellowships are I just I've met other people who they do a fellowship and then after the fellowship's over it's not guaranteed that you'll stay with the organization and so I wasn't interested in applying to a lot of fellowships I was interested in getting exposure but I wanted to be like I wanted I was very mindful in only applying to places that I could see myself working at fulltime and so that's why I only applied to two I'll say I had two applications ready but I had already heard back from Mayo Clinic and so I didn't submit those ones so technically you could say four was on my radar but that's solely because I only wanted to apply to places that I could see myself at full-time post fellowship and I was also Trea in the fellowship in that regard where I wanted I really wanted it to be getting my foot in the door with an organization rather than just adding to my resume that I did a fellowship and so I think that's why so few for me at least and so with that in mind you know you you have a lot of things you were looking for you're you were being pretty specific about what fellowships you were applying to I want to ask this and not necessarily from the perspective you're in now but from the perspective you were when you were applying yeah other than the rotational nature what Drew to Mayo Clinic what made you say I want to be here for the next you know 10 20 years or or yeah no totally it went back to so Mayo Clinic I I think for one Mayo Clinic you hear about it in the classroom setting especially when you're studying healthcare administration or any health rated degree it comes up in case studies or it's mentioned in various for various reasons and I had first really learned about them in undergrad we were assigned to do I think it was at random too I don't even think I chose the Mayo Clinic but we were given a well- revered Healthcare organization to do a project on and you were supposed to basically dive deeper into what the organization looks like on a day-to-day basis why they're well revered so on and so forth the fun presentations you have to give for classes and so I was assigned Mayo Clinic and that was my first exposure to it it's funny cuz I'm from Arizona and I knew that there was a m Clinic here but I just hadn't really thought about it too much and it was that presentation that made me realize oh this would be an interesting place to work at someday like I'd love to actually consider that but I was in undergrad I knew I had a wild go so I kind of put the thought to the side and then when Fellowship season came around I was iffy on if I wanted to do with Fellowship that's another thing that was unique about me I wasn't like all in on doing a fellowship my attitude was if I get a fellowship perfect like then I'll go that route but if I don't do a fellowship it's not the end of the world it just wasn't meant to be I'm going to go this route instead and so I I think that also goes back to why I applied to so few because it wasn't end of the world kind of thing if I didn't get one but with Mayo Clinic I knew that they had a fellowship and I say that I decided two or three days before the application was due but...