Competing in Alabama, Brainstorming in Texas
The past two weeks have been busy ones for our first-year on-campus graduate students as they approach the mid-point of the spring semester. Between case competitions, ideation sessions, preparations for major group projects and presentations, thinking ahead to ACHE Congress in Chicago in late March and Preceptors' Conference in early May, and studying for upcoming exams, things have heated up in a semester known for being full, busy, challenging, and rewarding.
This past week saw our group of three first-year students compete in the 11th annual University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Health Administration Case Competition. Jake Abrey, Shirly Ho, and Dillon Rai devoted three weeks to diligently preparing their strategic response to the case presented in the competition, which involved meaningfully addressing the needs of emergency department superutilizers at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore. Their hard work and efforts certainly paid off, and we were thrilled to see them advance to the second round of the competition. This feat is all the more impressive when you consider that our students are only a few weeks into their second semester in the program, capably competing against other teams primarily fielded by second-year graduate students with at least three semesters under their belts. We were very impressed with their exceptional work effort and camaraderie, and we knew that regardless of the outcome, we were incredibly proud of what they were able to accomplish.
Back in San Antonio, after emerging from a weekend of intense strategic planning and case development with the Cleveland Clinic Case Competition, our students enjoyed Monday to debrief and decompress, but they were back at it on Tuesday as we kicked off three consecutive days of ideation (i.e., brainstorming) for students to begin preparing for the annual Tiger Tank project, which is a joint project between HCAD 5311 (Health Services Organization & Policy II) and HCAD 5313 (Health Economics) in which small groups of students develop innovative solutions to challenging problems in health care today and then pitch those solutions before a panel of health industry leaders and entrepreneurs, similar to the popular television show, Shark Tank. Tuesday included a high-energy three-hour session led by the talented and dynamic Dr. Luis Martinez, Director of Trinity University's Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, as he introduced and led students through the Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas: two similar tools entrepreneurs use to fully develop their innovative ideas and identify their critical value proposition. The next two days were devoted to drawn-out "ideation" sessions, in which students engaged in a variety of creativity exercises in small groups to help identify the critical problems they want to address, potential directions they may initially pursue to find solutions to those problems, and the peers they want to work together with on developing their Tiger Tank concept.
As our Department Chair, Dr. Ed Schumacher, likes to say, "This is our kind of fun." It may make for a unique definition of "fun" as some people might initially think about it, but our students are truly having fun while they're challenging themselves to learn and grow rapidly, and we couldn't be more proud.
This past week saw our group of three first-year students compete in the 11th annual University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Health Administration Case Competition. Jake Abrey, Shirly Ho, and Dillon Rai devoted three weeks to diligently preparing their strategic response to the case presented in the competition, which involved meaningfully addressing the needs of emergency department superutilizers at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore. Their hard work and efforts certainly paid off, and we were thrilled to see them advance to the second round of the competition. This feat is all the more impressive when you consider that our students are only a few weeks into their second semester in the program, capably competing against other teams primarily fielded by second-year graduate students with at least three semesters under their belts. We were very impressed with their exceptional work effort and camaraderie, and we knew that regardless of the outcome, we were incredibly proud of what they were able to accomplish.
Back in San Antonio, after emerging from a weekend of intense strategic planning and case development with the Cleveland Clinic Case Competition, our students enjoyed Monday to debrief and decompress, but they were back at it on Tuesday as we kicked off three consecutive days of ideation (i.e., brainstorming) for students to begin preparing for the annual Tiger Tank project, which is a joint project between HCAD 5311 (Health Services Organization & Policy II) and HCAD 5313 (Health Economics) in which small groups of students develop innovative solutions to challenging problems in health care today and then pitch those solutions before a panel of health industry leaders and entrepreneurs, similar to the popular television show, Shark Tank. Tuesday included a high-energy three-hour session led by the talented and dynamic Dr. Luis Martinez, Director of Trinity University's Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, as he introduced and led students through the Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas: two similar tools entrepreneurs use to fully develop their innovative ideas and identify their critical value proposition. The next two days were devoted to drawn-out "ideation" sessions, in which students engaged in a variety of creativity exercises in small groups to help identify the critical problems they want to address, potential directions they may initially pursue to find solutions to those problems, and the peers they want to work together with on developing their Tiger Tank concept.
As our Department Chair, Dr. Ed Schumacher, likes to say, "This is our kind of fun." It may make for a unique definition of "fun" as some people might initially think about it, but our students are truly having fun while they're challenging themselves to learn and grow rapidly, and we couldn't be more proud.
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