In this episode, Lauren talks with second-year MHA students Hayden Malven and Gracie Petersen about their summer internships and the lessons they carried forward from those experiences. Hayden spent her summer working in finance and service line strategy at University of Iowa Health Care, while Gracie completed an operations internship at UNC Children’s Hospital in North Carolina.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health.

Lauren Lavin:

Hello everybody and welcome back to Plugged in to Public Health. Today we are highlighting the summer internship experiences of semester of health administration students. Internships are where classroom theory meets the reality of healthcare leadership, and this episode offers an inside look at how emerging leaders build skills, find mentors, and discover new career paths. If it’s your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they matter in everyday life.

I’m joined today by two second year MHA students, Hayden and Gracie, who spent their summer in very different health systems. One worked in finance and service line strategy right here at the University of Iowa, and the other gained experience in pediatric operations at UNNC Children’s in North Carolina. Together they share what brought them to their internships, what surprised them, what challenged them, and the lessons they will carry into their future careers.

Plugged in to Public Health is produced and edited by the students of the University of Iowa College of Public Health. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health. Now let’s get plugged in to public health.

Well, thank you so much, Hayden and Gracie for being on the podcast today. Could you start off, I’ll have Hayden go first, introduce yourself. Just give me the basics.

Hayden Malven:

Hi, I’m Hayden. I am a second year MHA student at the University of Iowa. Before this, I graduated with my degree in public health, also from the University of Iowa, and I’m originally from Ottumwa. And this summer I did my internship with finance and accounting also at the University of Iowa.

Lauren Lavin:

You have just been rooted here for the last couple of years?

Hayden Malven:

Very much so. I think I bleed black and gold at this point.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Did you do undergrad to grad or did you do four years of undergrad?

Hayden Malven:

I did three years of undergrad because I had college credits coming in.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh.

Hayden Malven:

But the MHA does not offer an undergrad to grad.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay, I didn’t know that.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

So still three years, but special circumstances. Okay, Gracie?

Gracie Petersen:

Yeah, so my name is Gracie Peterson. I’m originally from Omaha, Nebraska, and I went to undergrad at Creighton University where I studied health administration and policy as well. And then I’m a second year MHA in the program here too. And this summer I did my internship with UNC Children’s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, so you were kind of far away.

Gracie Petersen:

I was. I’d never set foot in North Carolina, but I had a great summer.

Lauren Lavin:

I love that. My husband actually went to Creighton and we were just back there two or three weeks ago.

Gracie Petersen:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

And it’s crazy how much that campus has changed.

Gracie Petersen:

They are building. They tore down two buildings since I left and built three new ones. So.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, we were walking through and he was doing his reminiscing and there was a lot of places that we couldn’t reminisce at.

Gracie Petersen:

Yeah. No, my freshman dorm got torn down last year. So it’s crazy.

Lauren Lavin:

His sophomore dorm was also torn down. You said where you completed your internships. Let’s talk about what drew you to, Hayden, we’ll start with you, to the University of Iowa and the role that you had over the summer. Explain what the internship looked like, that kind of background.

Hayden Malven:

So starting kind of at the beginning, what drew me to the university and finance specifically was I got engaged the July before the program started, and I knew we were getting married the January after the program started. And so I wanted a guarantee that I’d be able to be in Iowa City with my husband for the summer kind of as soon as possible, especially with wedding planning happening, which is crazy.

And so finance was one of the first internships that opened up. It was not an area that I had particular strengths or honestly interest in, but I knew it was something that I would be able to use in any career going forward. So I applied. The application process was really early. I had my offer in early December, which was super great, but structurally it’s a little bit of a choose your own adventure. The preceptor is also a professor for both semesters.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh.

Hayden Malven:

So…

Lauren Lavin:

You’re familiar.

Hayden Malven:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah.

Hayden Malven:

She knows us pretty well by the end of our first year and was able to kind of give us projects based on what she knew were our strengths as well as some of those areas that she thought we could really grow in. And also there were a lot of projects offered to us within the first few weeks that we could choose whether we were interested in taking them on or not, as well as just kind of throughout the year as things progress or change, we were able to take on different things as well, which was super great.

Lauren Lavin:

And was it all in person?

Hayden Malven:

Not necessarily. I liked going in person, but there were opportunities to kind of work from home as well.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, it’s so interesting to me if people are in person people or remote people. Because I do almost all of my work from home and I love that, but it takes a certain type. I mean, I do miss the connection and then I come here and I just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. So and that’s why I can’t work here all the time. But it’s always interesting to see what people prioritize and choose. Gracie, how did you decide on your internship?

Gracie Petersen:

Yeah. I kind of applied pretty broadly and in the beginning I thought maybe I was interested in October, November, I was like, “Maybe I want to do consulting or maybe I want to do this,” but I think my heart had always been in more operations based stuff.

So then I started applying pretty much only to those. And I also had a draw to children, so I knew I wanted to see if I could get an internship there. But there weren’t very many opportunities, so I kind of tried to prioritize that. And then when I ended up having an interview with who was my preceptor, I felt like we really, really clicked and it was just a really good experience that I had there this summer. Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

For those listening who don’t know what a preceptor is, could you explain what that position is?

Gracie Petersen:

They would essentially be your boss, but also they’re kind of in charge of making your experience also have learning opportunities, inviting you to their meetings. And ultimately they do have you turn in your deliverables and stuff to them, but they’re kind of also a mentor rolled into one.

Lauren Lavin:

And how many, I mean, either one of you can answer this, how many internships are there do you think that people have the options to choose from?

Gracie Petersen:

We got sent a good amount, probably over a hundred.

Lauren Lavin:

Wow.

Gracie Petersen:

But there’s definitely more than that throughout the country. I feel like we got sent pretty much all the Midwest ones, all the Iowa ones. But if you wanted to go somewhere further away, you might probably have to go searching yourself.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And did location for you, Gracie, have any factor in this?

Gracie Petersen:

I knew I kind of wanted to go far away if I could. I’d pretty much always been a Midwest girlie, so I kind of wanted to see if I could do something else. So when this opportunity popped up, and I actually have a best friend who’s going to Duke right now, and so she was only 20 minutes away. And so I was like, “This would be a really cool opportunity.”

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. That works out perfectly. So Hayden, what kind of projects or responsibilities did you have at this internship this summer?

Hayden Malven:

One of my favorites was I got to be, and I’m continuing to be a service line analyst. So-

Lauren Lavin:

What does that mean?

Hayden Malven:

A lot of healthcare is kind of transitioning to a service line version of things. So instead of having all of these separate departments and looking at things that way and kind of using that for strategic goals and priorities, they’re bundled a little bit more. Because a lot of the time if you have a patient who has cancer, they’re not just seeing that one oncologist, they’re also going to radiology, they’re also maybe going to dermatology and all of these other places as well.

And so it just bundles those patients a little bit better and helps the organization look at what they can actually do to improve quality, safety, decrease costs, while also keeping patient care at the forefront of things. And so being a service line analyst is a lot more, it’s a lot of number crunching.

Sometimes I joke that I look out and Excel cells are just superimposed over my vision, but a lot of it was just looking at that identifying areas for growth as well as strengths that could be carried into different parts of that service line or even other service lines and then presenting those pretty much quarterly to department heads and those leadership people so that they’re able to hear about that and get more of a grasp of what that is, as well as getting some of that qualitative feedback as well on our side to deepen that understanding.

Lauren Lavin:

So do you look at just the financial data or are you also crossing it with quality? Because like you mentioned, you want to look for ways to decrease cost, but you don’t want it to impact patient quality. So are you looking at both of those streams of data when you’re analyzing a service line?

Hayden Malven:

Yeah. There’s actually a ton more than just financials. So there’s benchmarking data we’re able to pull, we use WRVUs, which those kind of look at… There’s different ratings for different procedures for doctors, and they’re paid kind of based on that. And some CMS jargon as well.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, relative value units.

Hayden Malven:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Yes.

Hayden Malven:

And even just looking at the number of FTEs in that area and the number of patients that they see. We don’t right now at least use a lot of the quality data right off the bat. But like I said, this is still kind of getting off of the ground, so I’m sure we will. And we’re partnering really closely with strategy and I know that they use a lot of that.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So there’s some cross departmental work that’s happening.

Hayden Malven:

Yes. Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Fabulous. Gracie, what kind of projects or responsibilities did you have?

Gracie Petersen:

So I had a primary project this summer that was actually patient experience based. And so we were working on reducing the wait times that patients spent in clinics. So there were some patients waiting two to three hours before they were actually being seen once they’d arrived.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, wow.

Gracie Petersen:

At the clinic. So that was what I was kind of tasked with breaking down. So I did a lot of different things. I was doing time studies and then doing little PDSA experiments and then putting together wait time boards and try to texting patients. So we kind of just did a broad array of actions there, but it was really cool.

Lauren Lavin:

Did you get to see that project completed or did you kind of kick it off?

Gracie Petersen:

I kind of did. It kind of kicked off, but we were able to put a couple solutions in place that are good, but will have to really be carried out by the team long term. So it’s in no way done, but I think there was a really good starting point going.

Lauren Lavin:

And did you both feel that your first year of MHA program classes properly prepared you for these two roles this summer?

Gracie Petersen:

I think yes and no. I think I got a lot of those skills that I did use like PDSA cycles or change management things, things that you learn about in theory, but applying them is a very different thing. So I think I understood the foundational background of them, which is really good. But then doing them is something else.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah, I would a hundred percent agree. I think the reason the internship is required is because there’s a ton you can learn in the classroom, but there are also things that you can only learn when you’re out on a job. And so having both just really helps us be well-rounded and confident going into a job.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I think so much on the job training. So if you are a student listening to this and you’re thinking about where you’re going to apply, you don’t have to know everything in order for whatever you’re doing. Right? You can go into finance and be like, “I don’t know how much I really know about this.” But then it works out because you learn on the job. Right? Was there a moment or experience that really stood out to you as especially meaningful over your summer?

Hayden Malven:

I think a big one for me was my preceptor, her name is Beth. She had gotten an email from someone who is new to kind of the executive and leadership team at UIHC, University Health Care. And she knew I knew that person and had had previous conversations with them and that they kind of served as a mentor. And she kind of just forwarded it to me, let them know that she was doing that and was like, “Hayden’s going to take this on.” And that was, I think week two or three of my internship.

And I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I knew she had a lot of confidence in me. And at that point, I knew who to reach out to for different pieces of that puzzle. And so it was something I was able to not only deliver on, but we ended up meeting and I ended up presenting all of my findings and recommendations to the person that had reached out and their entire team, which was huge. And that has turned into a quarterly report, which honestly is just really meaningful knowing that I didn’t have the confidence in myself, but that somebody else was able to see it in me. And that still is just something that brought up.

Lauren Lavin:

And I think that’s how we learn so many new tasks and gain the confidence to do them is someone else saying, “No, I think you can do this.”

Hayden Malven:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Even when you don’t feel like you can. So I think that’s a really important part of any internship experience, is hopefully you have people that can speak that into you as you work through it.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah, for sure.

Lauren Lavin:

Gracie, any particularly meaningful moments?

Gracie Petersen:

I think the biggest thing for me about UNC was just the culture. I think I was wowed immediately that interns and fellows were such ingrained in the culture. No one was surprised when we showed up to meetings. People were really excited that we were there and wanted our opinion. So I think I was just really kind of awestruck by how much the leadership was excited to have learners around.

That was really exciting. But also my preceptor, her name was Jessica, was just so intentional with giving me opportunities to do things. She was encouraging me to go all these trainings. I went to a Lean Six Sigma yellow belt training. I went to a team steps training, and she would invite me in her office anytime she had a cool meeting. And she’s like, “You could learn from this.” So I think I was just really wowed with the intentionality behind her stuff.

Lauren Lavin:

I love that. And what skills do you think that you built or strengthened that will carry you into your future career during these internships?

Gracie Petersen:

I think I was really wowed by Jessica’s really calm and steady demeanor. I felt like there were sometimes maybe heated meetings or problems going on, and she was just always so eloquent with her word choice and she would just pause and then come out with the most amazing statement I’ve ever heard.

And so I think I really took away a lot of that thinking before you speak and being very intentional with the actions that you’re putting forward. So I learned a lot. And her line that she always said was, “Create systems that are hard to fail in.” And I think that really stuck with me as something that I would love to do for my staff one day.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And those are kind of the in-between moments. They’re not something that you’d learn in a classroom or not even something that they would advertise as, “This is a skill that we teach.” Right?

Gracie Petersen:

Exactly. Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

From just being around leaders and people who are wiser than us.

Gracie Petersen:

Yeah.

Hayden Malven:

I’d say definitely very similar, had a really strong female leader, especially to look up to and learn from, and being able to see that you can lead in a team and be personable and talk about your kids and your life outside of work.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s so key to be able to see.

Hayden Malven:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Because there are some places where that would just not be appropriate.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah. And so that was honestly kind of magical, just of being able to note that that can be a reality and that you can be successful in that. And also, I did walk away with a lot of financial understanding, which is super great.

Lauren Lavin:

And kind of a job going forward. Okay. Were there any challenges that you faced during this time? And if so, how’d you work through them?

Gracie Petersen:

I think a big one for me was I just didn’t know where to start. I think I was given this really big project and they told me, “It’s broad. You can kind of do whatever you want with it.” And I think I was a little overwhelmed for those first few weeks because I just didn’t fully know how I wanted to tackle this.

I had some really good meetings with my boss and I was working in multiple clinics. I was meeting with all of those clinic managers and trying to kind of get to the bottom of what everyone was going on. So I think just having a lot of those conversations and kind of giving myself the okay to fail a little bit because you still have time to fix things, was really good for me.

Lauren Lavin:

And I think that is, again, we’re used to being in a classroom setting where a rubric is laid out like, “Hey, here are the steps to finish this.” And then you’re out in the real world and there’s a million pieces and you don’t always have access to all of them right off the bat.

Gracie Petersen:

Yep. I think I found so many tools and metrics and stuff along the way that I didn’t know existed, and I would find this new tabloid sheet, and then I would be like, “Oh, this was so helpful. I wish I had this weeks ago.” So it’s funny what you find.

Lauren Lavin:

You learn by doing.

Gracie Petersen:

Yeah.

Hayden Malven:

I think, yeah, transitioning to a full-time job was a little bit difficult initially, and even going home and not having homework. I was ready to go home and keep working on things and had to kind of be continually reminded that I don’t need to be sending emails at 8:00 PM.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s wild. Yeah. What do you do with the free time?

Hayden Malven:

Yeah, that was a big challenge. And also one of my projects did end up being helping to lead the intranet transition for UI Healthcare, which the deadline for that got moved up fairly quickly. And so then we were all a little bit curious as to what that was actually supposed to look like, what we needed to do and what resources were actually necessary for the enterprise when it comes to finance and financial strategy.

And so kind of like Gracie, I had no idea where to start with that, but the U has a great team and they were really able to help support us in leading that transition, which was a lot of fun in the long run looking back, but was pretty intense as I’d never created a website before.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. That again, you learned by doing.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Did your internships shape or shift your perspective on what a future career could look like or what healthcare leadership looks like in today’s world?

Hayden Malven:

Honestly, almost in every way. I talked about seeing strong female leadership that’s able to be empathetic and strong and in ways that I hadn’t seen before was really impactful. I also did not think I would ever want to work in finance, but have come to really love it.

And even understanding that finance isn’t the team that says no to things. They’re the team that generally says, “Not yet,” or, “Hey, maybe we should focus on this first to make sure that it is sustainable.” And everything that’s done there really does have a patient care focus, which I think is hard to see or understand if you’re on the outside, but that was huge this summer as well.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. What a good realization and then to have someone like you who can kind of speak that out, that’s also probably key. Because you’re right, I think a lot of people associate finance with, “Well, we’re not giving you any more money.” But it’s really just being good stewards of what you do have, especially in today’s healthcare environment. That’s just what it is.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Anything for you?

Gracie Petersen:

I think I would echo the female leadership component was really cool for me this summer. I sat right in the heart of the children’s and women’s leadership Suite at UNC, and it was all women directors. So I thought that was just really cool, and they were all super eager for me to tag along to meetings and other events they were going to.

So that was amazing. But also, I think I kind of reaffirmed for me that operations is what I wanted to be doing. I like that it’s something different every day. I like that there’s kind of choose your own adventure and new challenges of things going on. So I think back to thinking this time last year when I had no idea for sure what I wanted to do, I think it really was able to affirm that I’m in the right place.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Great. So as we wrap this up, last question. What advice would you give to first year MHA students as they prepare for their own internship search and picking an internship and maybe their experience once they get there? Big question. Tackle what you want.

Gracie Petersen:

I think I would just suggest being open to all opportunities. I didn’t know UNC Health existed until about November when some people had already gotten their internships, and then I just found this one and I applied in December and then got it in January. Felt like mine was maybe a little bit later than some of the other people’s, but it was really just kind of an opportunity that randomly popped up and really intrigued me.

So definitely be open to other things that you weren’t thinking. But and I think once you get there, I think just be a sponge and really try to soak up everything you were given. And some advice that my alumni mentor gave me was an intern’s job is kind of to be the excited person that’s happy to be at work every day because this is-

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, that’s so good.

Gracie Petersen:

I know. I thought that, it really stuck with me all summer. She’s like, “Everyone else, this is kind of monotonous and this is what they do all the time, and you’re the new exciting presence in the office. So make people excited to come to work.” And so that was something that really stuck with me.

Lauren Lavin:

I love that. I hope people listen to that and take that away too.

Hayden Malven:

Yeah. I think definitely I would second everything Gracie said, and also your internship doesn’t have to be, I think they almost get marketed as these big sparkly things. And if you’re not at A, B or C, then you’re not really doing an internship.

Gracie Petersen:

True.

Hayden Malven:

I would just say that that’s not true, and don’t necessarily pick a place based on who they are, but based on what you need. This is kind of your last chance before you’re in the real world.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. To try things out.

Hayden Malven:

To try things out, to… I mean, obviously don’t try to fail, but try new things and be willing to fail and sit back up and do it again. Because at the end of the day, you are there to learn and to grow, and the amount that you’re able to do that is totally, is solely limited by you.

Lauren Lavin:

Right. I love that advice too. Well, thank you both so much for chatting with me today. I really appreciate it. I learned a lot, and I hope our listeners did too.

Gracie Petersen:

Thank you much.

Hayden Malven:

Thank you.

Gracie Petersen:

Happy to be here.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s it for our episode this week. A big thank you to Hayden and Gracie for joining me. The reflections offered a grounded look at what MHA internships are really like, from learning to navigate uncertainty.

That’s it for our episode this week. A big thank you to Hayden and Gracie for joining us.

That’s it for our episode this week. Big thank you to Hayden and Gracie for joining me. Their reflections offered a grounded look at what MHA internships are really like, from learning to navigate uncertainty to discovering leadership styles they admire to stepping confidently into new challenges. Their experiences show why internships are such a vital bridge between graduate training and the complexity of real-world healthcare.

This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and edited and produced by Lauren Lavin. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcasts are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and want to support our work, please share it with your friends, colleagues, or anyone interested in public health. Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode was brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.