Kimberly Kushner - New York

Internship location: New York, N.Y.
Career goal: Working in health care or social impact consulting

Internship summary: 
I interned in the health and productivity practice of Cammack LaRhette Consulting in New York City. Working mostly with self-insured, hospital-based clients, the practice is responsible for analyzing and improving the health of employee populations to reduce individual patient risk and lower costs for the client and the individual employee. My responsibilities included the creation of internal and external implementation guides that would streamline all processes, work flows and expectations for new clients. Additionally, I was able to work on two other projects where I analyzed the medical records of patients engaged in our programs to create analytics that contributed to the foundation of our 2012 program design and strategy. I worked directly with the chairman and other company leaders to develop future strategies for our clients and our practice.

Value of experience:
This experience allowed me to leverage my undergraduate premedical knowledge and put to use the skills I learned during my first year at YSPH. It also gave me new insights into the intersection of health policy and business. I was encouraged to hone my public health leadership skills, work with individuals at all levels of business and to think strategically. Health policy, I learned, is not enough to change people’s behavior and public, private and social sectors need to work together to create a meaningful difference. My passion for improving the health of populations and the career path I want to take following graduation were affirmed through my internship experience.

Best moment:
After reviewing almost 100 patient cases for a client I noticed that a significant portion of the employee population was diagnosed with hypertension. I brought this information to a meeting with the company chairman and we worked on a solution to help these patients avoid an adverse outcome.