Liz Meinert, a dedicated Health Sector Management (HSM) student from the Class of 2015, developed the idea of an HSM Fellowship in her first year at Fuqua. She felt that fellows would strengthen the HSM program by institutionalizing a formal avenue for student input. Liz worked closely with our HSM administration to establish the fellowship, and was part of selecting the initial team in the fall of 2014.

There was a lot of enthusiasm surrounding the new fellowship, and many talented students applied. From the excellent candidates, Alice Pai ’15, Jessica Stone ’16, and Hunter Sinclair ’16, were chosen to join Liz as the inaugural HSM Fellowship team. Last spring, Himakshi Jhala ‘16, was selected as an additional fellow.

In their first year, the team designed a survey that was distributed to current HSM students to get a baseline analysis of opinions on the program. In successive years, the HSM Fellows will create an annual report, comprised of results from this survey, as well as exit interviews with HSM students. The HSM Fellows also examined how Fuqua competes with other health care programs at leading business schools throughout the U.S., compiling the results into an HSM competitive analysis. The analysis will also be updated yearly to ensure continued excellence by keeping our curriculum relevant and competitive with other leading business schools.

Four students from the Class of 2017 were selected for the HSM Fellowship Team this fall:  Ana Svoren, Will Ratliff, Kate Ramsey and Rohan Hooda, MD. These student representatives are passionate about HSM, and represent the program when talking to prospective and current students, and alumni. They also offer ideas for collaborating with Duke University Hospital and businesses in Research Triangle Park, and will focus on bridging the gap between the Daytime and executive MBA students in HSM. They will work closely with the student engagement committee of the Health Care Alumni Advisory Board (HCAAB) and will provide feedback on the HSM curriculum as needed, to keep pace with changes from the Affordable Health Care Act.

You can read more about the HSM student experience here on the program’s blog.