With Mod 1 final exams over in October, many of my classmates began a well-deserved weeklong break from school. As a first-year Health Care MBA, however, I prepared for the first step in earning the “health care” part of my degree: Immersion Week. I, like most of my fellow Health Care MBA’s, came to Owen specifically for the health care specialization and had been hearing about Immersion Week and its purpose—experiencing the clinical side of health care before starting our education on the business side—for months. I had signed up for my clinical rotations, sent in my scrub sizes, picked up my Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) badge, and was ready to go.
One of the most anticipated (and for some, scary) parts of the week was the operating room rotations. I arrived at VUMC bright and early on my assigned day, suited up in hospital scrubs, cap, mask, and booties, and was ushered through an OR door. Soon, I was standing a few feet away from two plastic surgeons as they tried to save a motorcycle accident victim’s leg from amputation by repairing blood vessels and applying skin grafts. Fortunately I’m not squeamish because the injuries were severe enough that the nurses seemed concerned I might faint just looking at the leg before the surgery even began. I walked out afterwards never wanting to ride a motorcycle, but before going under anesthesia the patient insisted that he would be back on his soon.
While my patient seemed to have a good shot at keeping his leg, David Long did observe a leg amputation later in the week. Emily Kraemer watched a laparoscopic kidney transplant. Alex Johnson watched surgeons remove a tumor from the base of a patient’s brain. Cole Wheeler was very proud he didn’t faint when he faced his fear of blood and watched a full hip replacement. We only wished they had let us keep our scrubs so we could continue to look like doctors while swapping surgery stories.
I may not be afraid of blood, but I did confront my mild fear of heights to visit Vanderbilt’s LifeFlight operation and learn why we seem to hear helicopters constantly around Vandy. LifeFlight prides itself on excellent equipment and experienced crews. It has six of its own helicopters and one fixed wing plane stationed around middle Tennessee, and an intense, year-long crew training program. We even toured one of the rooftop helipads (I made sure to stay far away from the edges), and watched a crew land and transport a critical patient into the hospital.
While our clinical observations gave us plenty of stories to share and an appreciation for the complexities of patient care, the most thought-provoking parts of the week took place outside of the hospital walls. Panel discussions held throughout the week—first with a group of prominent surgeons from VUMC, and then with administrators from both VUMC and neighboring for-profit Centennial—provided fascinating and candid perspectives on the problems plaguing our health care system from the people in the thick of it.
The final event of the week was debriefing over pizza and beer with Professor Larry Van Horn. We discussed our observations from the week and started to get Larry’s perspective on the serious problems facing the health care industry (a preview for our Mod 2 Health Care Economics and Policy class). We each left Immersion Week troubled by so many of the issues we observed, but also excited to dig deeper into these issues and explore solutions during the rest of our Owen Health Care education. We also left wearing our parting gift from the week: Vanderbilt Health Care MBA scrubs to make up for the OR scrubs we didn’t get to keep.
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