As I look back and reflect on my time in the MSQM: Health Analytics program at Fuqua, I am deeply appreciative of all my professors, classmates, and the MSQM program leadership team. Their support was critical as I navigated a period of significant impact in my life. While in the MSQM program, I lived in Fort Myers, Florida, and worked as a performance excellence consultant at Lee Health, a public, not-for-profit health system with six acute care facilities and more than 15,000 employees. On September 28, 2022, our health system and southwest Florida community faced one of the greatest challenges it has ever faced—Hurricane Ian, a massive, Category 4 hurricane, made landfall just north of downtown Fort Myers.

Hurricane Ian was one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes to hit the state of Florida on record. At Lee Health, we felt the full effect of the hurricane’s impact on our daily operations, and staffing availability and safety. The storm severely disrupted daily operations at several of Lee Health’s facilities. Patients from two of our hospitals were transferred to surrounding medical facilities to ensure their safety in the fallout of the storm. In addition, many of my colleagues were also significantly impacted. Some lost their homes, belongings and possessions.

As our community worked to recover from Hurricane Ian’s devastation, it was partly my responsibility to help Lee Health staff impacted by the storm. My colleagues and I in the performance excellence office worked to support resource allocation to staff members in need. We also lead operational improvement efforts to get the health system back on track financially and operationally post-hurricane.

Having just been through a devastating storm, witnessing my colleagues’ and neighbors’ livelihoods turned upside down in an instant and being tasked with leading high-priority projects to ensure the financial viability of Lee Health for the remainder of the fiscal year proved to be an extremely challenging period of my life both personally and professionally. Not to mention my school obligations as part of the MSQM program. Immediately following the hurricane, I remember making the two-hour drive to Miami to take several of my classes from a Holiday Inn hotel lobby just to get adequate Wi-Fi to log into class. Knowing what I had just experienced, the program made accommodations for me.

I found this period from late September 2022 through graduation to be an extremely rewarding period of my career. I grew immensely in all areas of my life because of my experience handling the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. This would not have been possible without the leadership, flexibility, and commitment shown to me by my MSQM classmates and staff. I am immensely grateful for my time in Fuqua’s MSQM program and will look back on this two-year period with tremendous admiration for the kindness, support, and patience my classmates showed me.