Michigan Medicine’s Administrative Fellowship is designed for ambitious early-careerists who want both breadth and depth—real projects, real mentors, and real exposure to system-level decision-making. In this conversation with first-year fellow Trent Garrett, MSHA, MBA, we unpack how a dual-degree path led him to Ann Arbor, why an atypical internship at Press Ganey paid off, and what day-to-day life looks like inside a two-year, project-driven fellowship that culminates in an “immersion” year. Expect candid advice on choosing programs, surviving interviews, and building a network that lasts. As Trent puts it, “there are going to be opportunities for you to learn and grow… based off of what you are looking for post-fellowship.” If you’re exploring administrative fellowships—or you lead one and want to sharpen it—this is your insider’s guide.
Trent is a first-year administrative fellow at Michigan Medicine whose nontraditional path (animal sciences → MBA/MSHA) gives him a distinctive systems lens.
Trent grew up in Panama City Beach, Florida, earned a bachelor’s in animal sciences at the University of Florida , and then made what he calls a “hard pivot” to health administration at University of Alabama at Birmingham, completing a dual MBA/MSHA. That shift was informed by hands-on clinical work during the pandemic, where he witnessed both the resilience of teams and the friction of fragmented processes. The experience sharpened his purpose: understand the clinical environment deeply, then use management training to remove barriers to great care.
Leaders consistently favor fellows who can translate clinical realities into operational solutions. Trent’s journey maps to that ideal: frontline exposure, analytic training, and the humility to learn in complex environments.
UAB’s three-year MBA/MSHA sequence (two didactic years + required fellowship year) provided both foundational business fluency and leadership development
For Trent—who came in without prior finance or business coursework—the dual program mattered. It layered core finance, strategy, and operations on top of healthcare management, with structured professional development baked in. He emphasizes the intentionality of UAB’s design: two years of classroom rigor, followed by a required fellowship year to apply it in practice. Even though Michigan Medicine’s fellowship spans two years, the habit of integrating theory with applied learning traveled with him.
A PCA role during COVID gave Trent empathy for clinical burdens; a consulting internship with Press Ganey gave him a cross-market vantage. Together, they grounded his administrative approach.
Trent started as a Patient Care Assistant at UF Health to “understand the scope of each role,” from nursing to medicine. Working through the pandemic surfaced “systemic issues” and sparked his drive to catalyze change. He then took an internship with Press Ganey Consulting, which became a high-leverage bridge between analytics and improvement. Over that summer and school year, he supported clients across:
The common thread: learning to see patterns across settings and connect survey insights, operational redesign, and change management. Cross-site exposure accelerates judgment. Seek experiences that mix clinical empathy with systems-level consulting or improvement work.
Be ruthlessly selective. Apply only where you’d say “yes” immediately, and cap your list to avoid burnout. “It is not easy… that was a very stressful time.”
Trent distilled his approach to three moves:
Practical toolkit:
Preparation and authenticity—in that order. “Come prepared, but also be your authentic self.”
Michigan Medicine clicked for Trent during the onsite: “All of the current fellows were just phenomenal… so personable, so intelligent and brilliant… I just fell in love with the institution and how detailed and intentional everyone was.” He also sanity-checked fit by asking: Are these people I want to work with?
Simple prep stack for candidates:
Leader insight: Authentically signal your culture during finalist days—fellows are interviewing you, too.
It’s a two-year program: Year 1 is project-based breadth; Year 2 is a deep-dive immersion in a specific area. “The Michigan Medicine Administrative Fellowship Program is a two year program.”
Year 1—Project-Based Breadth In the first two weeks, fellows receive a curated list of vetted project proposals. Each entry outlines the background, scope, preceptor, and mentorship plan. “The first two weeks… you get a list of submitted project proposals… and then who your preceptor for that project would be and how they would mentor you.” Areas span clinic operations, faculty affairs, graduate medical education, and more. Fellows choose to build range.
Year 2—Immersion (Depth) “We call it the immersion year… embedded as a full-time resource within one area or departments within Michigan Medicine.” That can mean an interim clinic manager role, a seat in Strategy, or another high-impact placement—designed to convert first-year range into second-year mastery.
Cohort Model & Culture Michigan Medicine accepts up to three fellows per year, emphasizing peer support and shared learning. Alumni remain visible, projects have demand (“leaders submit requests before fellows even start”), and the program’s decades-long history means stakeholders understand how to integrate fellows.
Bottom line for executives: This breadth-then-depth architecture de-risks early-career placement and creates versatile leaders who understand the enterprise.
Monthly 1:1s with two executive preceptors, quarterly with an executive sponsor, frequent touchpoints with the program director, and weekly exposure to C-suite meetings.
The structure is unusually explicit:
Fellows staff weekly upper-leadership meetings, seeing how enterprise priorities are debated and decided. They’re also encouraged to network upward: “We can cold call or cold email senior leaders just to have coffee chats or one-on-ones… and because we’re fellows, they’re more than open to it.”
High-priority, system-visible work with measurable impact. Trent helped Michigan Medicine roll out ambient AI documentation for providers—300 initial licenses—on an accelerated timeline.
“We had implemented ambient AI documentation for providers. We had 300 initial licenses… first proposed… as six weeks, and then… asked, can we cut this in half? And… we said yeah.” Why it mattered: reducing “pajama time” by offloading documentation burden so clinicians can finish notes during the day, not at night.
What success looked like:
What the project teaches fellows:
Inclusive, vibrant, and livable. “Ann Arbor is just a welcoming community.” Yes, winters are real, but even Trent’s co-fellow from Hawaii is thriving.
Trent was deliberate about choosing not just an organization, but a place aligned with his values. He found Ann Arbor to be:
Leader takeaway: Selling your city matters. Programs win when they help candidates imagine life outside the hospital—community, culture, and support systems.
Prioritize fit, cap the list, and be kind to yourself. “You are likely going to be told no… so be kind to yourself.”
Trent’s go-to guidance:
For programs: Make fit discoverable. Show candidates your mentorship model, project pipeline, and leadership access—and let them meet the fellows they’ll stand beside.
Short answer: A decades-long track record, a “build-your-own-path” culture, and enterprise-level buy-in. Projects are requested by leaders—often before fellows even start.
Trent highlights the institutional memory and demand signal: stakeholders know how to use fellows. That maturity produces four reinforcing benefits:
Michigan Medicine’s Administrative Fellowship blends intentional project design with access to decision-makers—and it asks fellows to own their journey. Year 1 maximizes range through a curated portfolio; Year 2 transforms that range into depth via immersion. Along the way, the program’s mentorship architecture and culture of executive access build the confidence and relationships fellows need to lead.
Actionable next step—whether you’re a candidate or a program lead:
As Trent’s experience shows, when structure and support align, fellows deliver outsized impact quickly—sometimes in as little as a week—while building the kind of careers that keep them in the system, paying it forward to the next cohort.
