Virtual Open House: Health Policy

April 02, 2020

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April 1, 2020

ID5004

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00:05- So
00:05welcome everyone to our online recording
00:10of orientation to the health policy program
00:14at Yale School of Public Health.
00:17This is to be honest, not the way we want to do orientations
00:21we'd want them to be in person,
00:22we'd want to all be together
00:24so you can get a sense of the community that exists here
00:28but the world is not the way anyone wants it to be right now
00:33and we're responding to that
00:34and we hope that everyone will be patient
00:36with the limitations of this medium.
00:39To be clear, although this session will be recorded,
00:42there is an online session scheduled
00:46for the afternoon of April 6th
00:48where our current students will be
00:50and take questions from prospective students.
00:53That session will also be recorded
00:56so if you are seeing this after April 6th,
00:58you can go and get the recorded version of that as well.
01:04We're gonna start with some introductions
01:05and so I'll lead off.
01:07I'm Mark Schlesinger.
01:09I am acting head chair of the department.
01:15I am by training an economist
01:17though of a behavioral sort
01:19so I study how people learn from their experiences
01:24and draw on those experiences to make choices.
01:28Choices about healthcare,
01:30choices about what kinds of public policy matter to them,
01:34what kinds of policies they want to support,
01:36what kinds of policies they would like to see changed
01:39and if so, how?
01:41I teach two classes in the health policy curriculum.
01:46The first is the broad introductory class
01:49that every student at this school takes
01:52including the policy students in the fall of your first year
01:56the second, a health politics and governance class
01:59that's taught in the fall of the second year
02:02for our policy students
02:04and anyone else who wants to take that.
02:07All right so now we're gonna go around the virtual room
02:10with introductions.
02:11Abby?
02:13- Hi everyone I'm Abby Friedman, I'm an assistant professor
02:17in the department of health policy and management
02:19and I'm a health economist by training.
02:22I have a sort of different stripe than some of the others.
02:24I focus on the policy determinants
02:25of behaviors that have long term risk
02:28particularly tobacco, marijuana, e-cigarettes,
02:32risky addictive behaviors.
02:34So my research tries to identify
02:36what switches we could flick from a policy perspective
02:39to address these behaviors, reduce their incidents
02:42or address disparities in them.
02:44Most of you will see me in the
02:47required microeconomics course,
02:49microeconomics for health policy and management
02:51in your first semester.
02:52If you major in economics
02:54or even took an intermediate level course and passed it,
02:57you should be exempting out of this course.
03:00For those of you who are interested in policy
03:02and have managed to avoid it
03:03your entire undergraduate career,
03:05I'm guessing there's a reason for that.
03:07Fear not.
03:08This course is hard, it will take you from zero to 60
03:12we're gonna get you up to intermediate applications
03:14of health economics in one semester
03:16but it is geared towards people
03:18who don't have a background when they start
03:20and the goal is to make it easier for you to tell
03:23when someone who walks into a room
03:25or you meet at a party says,
03:26let the markets fix it, leave it alone,
03:29the markets will fix it, whether you should believe them
03:31and if you shouldn't believe them,
03:33what you might actually think the underpinning problem is
03:37and something you could do about it.
03:38So it is very much an applied
03:40micro for health policy course.
03:49- Hi.
03:54Hello?
03:54- Go ahead Shelly, yeah we can hear you.
03:56- Okay, I'm Shelley Geballe.
03:58I'm an assistant professor of clinical public health
04:03and that's because I am teaching in a clinical track
04:06based on my years of experience in public health practice.
04:11I'm actually a lawyer by training.
04:12I came to New Haven in 1972
04:14thinking I'd be here for three years.
04:17Worked for the ACLU in Connecticut
04:19doing a lot of class action litigation
04:21that involved health care,
04:22representing inmates with HIV disease
04:24when that epidemic was beginning,
04:26representing the state's foster children.
04:28And I came then to school in my forties
04:30to get an MPH here.
04:32Started Connecticut Voices for children
04:34where I switched my advocacy from
04:36litigation to legislative work.
04:39And then starting in about 2008,
04:41I started doing more teaching here.
04:43My focus again, is on public health law
04:48and I used to have to explain what it was
04:50but now that we've had this pandemic,
04:52it doesn't really require much explanation.
04:56It's the law the undergirds the power
04:57that public health agencies have,
04:59the constraints on that power
05:00and law itself as a social determinant of health.
05:05- Jacob?
05:07- Hi everyone.
05:09My name's Jacob Wallace.
05:11I'm an assistant professor here
05:13at the Yale School of Public Health.
05:14I've been here, this is now my third year.
05:17It took me a while to make my way to academia
05:20after I graduated from college
05:22so just to give you a sense of my background
05:24'cause these might be paths
05:25some of you might have pursued already
05:26or be considering pursuing.
05:29Prior to getting my PhD, I worked as a policy maker
05:32for the New York State Department of Health
05:34for three years in the state Medicaid program.
05:36I also worked in consulting for a year
05:39and launched a non for profit advocacy organization.
05:43So I have a lot of sort of variable experience.
05:46After getting my PhD, I then spent a year
05:48working in Silicon Valley as a data scientist
05:51and a product manager so,
05:52I bring a lot of different perspectives to my research here
05:57and my teaching here and in terms of teaching,
05:59where you'll find me is
06:00in the methods and health services research class
06:02where I'm trying to bring in a little bit of what I learned
06:05in Silicon valley, as a policy maker,
06:07as well as as a PhD student.
06:09And I look forward to hopefully meeting you all next fall.
06:15- Chima.
06:17- Sure.
06:19Good morning everybody, my name is Chima D Ndumele
06:22I'm an associate professor of health policy
06:24obviously at the Yale School of Public Health.
06:26First I'd actually like to echo Mark's thought.
06:30I know this isn't the ideal mechanism for this kind of forum
06:36nor is it the most fun for us
06:38but I really look forward to meeting
06:40and seeing a bunch of you folks in the fall.
06:43What I do here, so from a research perspective,
06:47my work is really about constructing a safety net system
06:52that is equipped to both facilitate care for
06:56and improve outcomes for vulnerable populations.
07:00I take a pretty expansive view of both of those concepts
07:02that is, what safety net organizations look like
07:06and who vulnerable populations are.
07:08So safety net organizations,
07:11a lot of my work focuses on Medicaid program
07:14but I also do work in community health centers
07:17and other organizations
07:19that serve a bulk of disenfranchised populations
07:22and in terms of vulnerable populations,
07:25yes that means low income folks,
07:27but it also includes folks with complex chronic conditions
07:31and the like.
07:33In terms of what I teach,
07:35I teach a course on comparative healthcare systems.
07:38Where we explore the things that define health systems.
07:43And when we think a little bit about what it is
07:45that makes health systems unique,
07:47and how health systems can change
07:49and what the complications are associated with that,
07:52and what the consequences are
07:54associated when they don't do it perfectly.
07:56So I'm looking forward to seeing all of you
07:59or many of you in the fall.
08:03- Tiffany.
08:05- I'm Tiffany, I'm second year health policy student
08:08also on the regulatory affairs track.
08:11So just a little bit about me,
08:13right before YSPH, I was just an undergrad
08:16getting my BS in microbiology
08:20so a little bit of a different field.
08:23Got super interested in health policy
08:26and kind of more into the social determinants of health
08:29and more specifically, how that relates to quality.
08:32So during my first year here, I was refining those interests
08:36and that led me to my summer internship
08:38at the National Committee for Quality Assurance
08:43and
08:44where I
08:45largely worked on
08:47assessing the performance of quality measurements
08:50in the mental health and cardiac care space
08:53as well as trying to develop a new measure
08:57around the home health sphere
08:59so from there, as I was wrapping up my second year
09:03kind of tried to refine my public health interest
09:05a little bit more
09:08kind of changes everyday,
09:09but currently I'm really interested
09:10in medical device regulation
09:12and how we kind of use regulation
09:15as well as other policy levers
09:16to incentivize improvements in quality of care.
09:23- Leila.
09:25- Hi everyone, my name is Leila.
09:26I am also a second year health policy student.
09:30I am
09:32from Connecticut.
09:34Right before coming to school, I was working in
09:36public affairs for reproductive health advocacy
09:38and legislation at the state level.
09:41I worked there for about five years
09:42and realized that I wanted to understand
09:44the broader landscape of where reproductive rights
09:48and health and advocacy fits
09:50in our overall healthcare system,
09:51understanding some of the big systems
09:53that are at play in the U.S.
09:55And also a better understanding
09:57of the legal determinants of health.
09:59Which I've gotten through some of the professors
10:01in this Zoom room.
10:03I think that, like Tiffany, my interests have changed
10:06vastly based on the first year curriculum,
10:08based on the second year curriculum
10:10and everything I've been able to explore.
10:12But at the heart of it,
10:13it's really about understanding
10:15how to take tools from this program
10:17and make sure that folks have better access to healthcare.
10:21At every level but also hopefully going back to
10:23reproductive healthcare at some point.
10:26And the advocacy that is very much needed with that today
10:30and probably tomorrow.
10:32So
10:33yeah, that's me.
10:36- All right great, thank you guys.
10:38All right now we are going to
10:39once again go around the virtual room
10:42but try to give you a feel
10:45for different aspects of the program.
10:48So I'm gonna start out with one core observation
10:51that's going to be very important
10:53for those of you thinking about
10:55choosing among different schools of public health.
10:59And it's summed up in two catch phrases.
11:03Catch phrase one,
11:04size matters.
11:07Catch phrase two, to quote an old book
11:09that probably only Shelley and I can remember,
11:12small is beautiful.
11:15So size does matter.
11:17Yale is on the smaller end of schools of public health.
11:23And indeed that's a reflection of the university as a whole.
11:28And it has multiple manifestations at different levels
11:32of your potential educational experience.
11:35The department in each typical cohort
11:38has about 30 to 35 policy students.
11:41We have about 15 faculty.
11:44You can figure out the relative ratio of faculty to students
11:48looks pretty good compared to a gigantic department
11:51that you find at many schools.
11:54That is a reflection of relatively small departments
11:58throughout the school
12:00and relatively small schools throughout Yale.
12:04Yale is a university composed of many different schools.
12:0813 professional schools.
12:10All of them are small.
12:13And in being small, they tend to be focused
12:16more outward than inward.
12:18They're open to students coming from one school to another,
12:22cutting across campus in various ways.
12:25Most of our flow of students goes to the law school
12:28or goes to the school of management
12:30but people also take courses in
12:32a variety of social science departments,
12:35the graduate school and a variety of other
12:39professional schools scattered around the university.
12:43Size also matters when you get outside of the university.
12:48New Haven is a relatively small city
12:51and I'm very pleased to say
12:53that in the 30 years I've been at Yale,
12:56relationships between the university and the city
12:58have vastly improved.
13:00Been vastly more constructive and more interactive
13:05around health and other issues.
13:07And so there are a lot of opportunities
13:10when you are here to take advantage of that.
13:14Size also matters at the state level
13:17and Connecticut is a small state.
13:19Small states for those of you
13:21who have some familiarity with them
13:24tend to have state legislatures
13:26legislatures and state government agencies
13:30that are relatively thinly staffed
13:33which creates great opportunities for placing our students
13:37in both those kinds of governmental settings
13:40and creates great opportunities
13:43for various kinds of advocacy groups to
13:46help to collaborate in the policy making process.
13:51So in that sense, Connecticut, New Haven and Yale
13:55are wonderful policy laboratories
13:58for you to build your applied skills in policy analysis
14:02and policy advocacy.
14:04There's much more to say
14:05but I'll leave you with that one thought
14:08and turn things over to Abby.
14:11- Hey everyone, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit
14:14about the way the semester's laid out.
14:17And the structure of the curriculum
14:19for health policy students at Yale.
14:22Hopefully you have in front of you, a curriculum guide
14:24for the class that we're gonna make available
14:27and what you'll see, probably the first thing you'll notice,
14:29is that the first semester has a lot more courses in it
14:32than any other semesters.
14:34Conceptually, Yale's approach
14:36to teaching MPH students generally
14:39is to use the first semester you're here
14:42to get everyone to a common baseline understanding
14:45of the foundational models
14:47and structures within the health policy system
14:50that are going to matter for you to build off of
14:53so that when you get into your areas of focus
14:55that matter to you,
14:57you understand how to think about how it relates
14:59to social justice.
15:00How it relates to the healthcare system
15:03on the ground right now.
15:04How it relates to microeconomics
15:07and the different models that come out of that
15:09and you can use some of the tools
15:11from microeconomics and bio stats and EPI
15:13to think in an even more sophisticated way
15:16about your area of focus.
15:18So in the first semester, what you see is actually
15:21a list of seven courses, never fear.
15:24Actually is it eight?
15:26It's eight courses, never fear.
15:27Three of those courses are not full-time courses.
15:30So there are five full-time courses.
15:31Bio stats,
15:32EPI,
15:33social justice and health equity,
15:35health policy and healthcare systems which Mark teaches
15:38and microeconomics for health policy and management
15:41which I teach.
15:42The last of those courses, micro,
15:44is only required for health policy students
15:46and is not required if you place out of it
15:48as in you have an economics background.
15:50After that there's a leadership seminar
15:53ethics in public health and professional skill series.
15:56All of these are not full every week courses
15:59and they're relatively short
16:03short
16:04length
16:05introductions
16:06or foundation building skills seminars
16:09and they have food which is key.
16:12So first semester,
16:13you don't really need to worry about what you're doing.
16:15We would strongly, and I'm only saying this
16:17'cause people have asked this in the past.
16:19I'd strongly encourage you
16:20not to try to take a sixth course.
16:22The issue with taking a sixth course is
16:25you would be actually scheduling yourself
16:27in such a way that you don't have access to opportunities
16:30that you don't know about yet.
16:31Throughout Yale, as Mark mentioned,
16:33there are a large number of relatively smaller schools.
16:36The law school and the business school in particular
16:38which have courses that are related to public health
16:42that may be of interest to you
16:43from behavioral economics to strategy,
16:46to health law,
16:48these courses are gonna be on your radar for the future.
16:51But they also have seminars.
16:53Seminars where you don't get credit for them
16:56so it's okay if you have to miss them one week
16:58'cause you're cramming.
16:59But there's usually food and an interesting speaker
17:01and it allows you to meet other people
17:03across the university
17:04and get a better sense of what's going on
17:06that really feeds your tailored interests.
17:09If you over schedule yourself in the first semester,
17:11you don't get to find out about all those resources,
17:13you don't get to meet those people
17:15and it is generally one of the huge benefits
17:18of being at Yale that you have
17:19very low boundaries between these schools.
17:22Your ability to go and sit in on a seminar
17:25and sit in on a talk or a lunch or a dinner or a
17:28someone who comes to campus, speaker series,
17:31is very simple.
17:33So you wanna leave space for that.
17:35In your second semester, you'll have a little bit more room.
17:38You'll have three required health policy courses.
17:41One of which is the leadership seminar again.
17:43And then you'll have major health threats
17:46which is an MPHY course,
17:47which leaves you with two electives.
17:49So you'll get even more freedom there
17:52and you'll get even more freedom of course in year two
17:55with fewer and fewer requirements.
17:57So this way we know that everyone has a common foundation
18:00and you know, when you're in class with another MPH student,
18:03that they can speak the same language you're speaking.
18:06I was also asked to talk about getting situated
18:10in the first semester generally
18:11and I will give you the advice that I was given as a student
18:14and that I give my advisees every year which is,
18:16get good at saying no
18:17and don't commit to too much in your first month here.
18:21If you commit in your first month,
18:24you don't get to see the opportunities that will open up
18:26in your second month and there are a lot of them
18:29because the first month of the year is when everyone is just
18:31acclimating and choosing their courses
18:33and getting their sea legs.
18:34So you wanna make sure that you don't jump
18:36at exciting opportunity number one
18:38without checking out what else is out there.
18:40The opportunities that you face by
18:42going to the different schools by going to these talks,
18:45but also by meeting your peers
18:47who are gonna be some of your greatest assets
18:49after you graduate
18:51are
18:52critical
18:53to the experience of being at Yale.
18:55So you wanna leave that room in your schedule
18:57to take advantage of that and to learn things
19:00so that we can tailor your later semesters
19:03in the best way as to where you wanna go
19:06and that is, I'll wrap up with,
19:08that is the key benefit of being in a small program.
19:11We have the faculty to student ratios necessary
19:15to help you tailor your education for what you want.
19:18So Tiffany's courses and Leila's courses
19:20might look very different.
19:21For example and they will look very different
19:23from another student
19:24who wants to go in a different direction
19:25and that's not just fine, that's great.
19:28That means that you can get the support from your advisor
19:32and the course work
19:34and the information that you need
19:37to make the most of this degree
19:39and to put yourself in the best position
19:41for what not just will make you productive
19:43with respect to health policy, but what will make you happy.
19:46I'm gonna go on to Jacob. - Happiness is good.
19:49Jacob, next up.
19:51- Thanks Abby, for teeing up
19:53I think, a lot of the value of the flexibility
19:55of the program.
19:56Let me talk a little bit about
19:58one of the foundations that we think is important
20:00for everyone to have while they're here
20:03and that's kind of on the method side.
20:05The set of tools that you'll be able to use
20:07and I'm gonna particularly focus on
20:10kind of quantitative methods
20:11because we live in an increasingly data driven world and,
20:16in my experience, folks who come out of
20:19these subject matter expertise heavy programs
20:22like, sorry like an MPH, they are uniquely positioned
20:27to contribute to data driven problems
20:30that I think every company, every government,
20:33every academic institution faces.
20:36And so my personal philosophy
20:38has been that you really need to be able
20:41to stretch across all three domains
20:44critical to data science if you wanna be a contributor.
20:48And so that would be subject matter expertise
20:50which you will clearly get coming here
20:53and will be uniquely positioned
20:54relative to many of your other
20:56many other folks in your cohort or age
20:59who don't have that kind of subject matter expertise
21:01and we know the healthcare system is just so complex.
21:04My introduction to the healthcare system
21:05was through the Medicaid program in New York
21:07and I think for the first year,
21:09I had literally no idea what was going on
21:11because the policy details
21:12and the institutional features are just so complicated
21:15and that's part of what makes an MPH in public health
21:19where you get so much exposure to the different
21:22institutional details as well as the disciplinary skills
21:24to analyze them is critical.
21:26For me, I then went on and got my PhD
21:28which is where I built some skills on
21:31the statistical analysis and causal inference side
21:34and those are the things we will help train you in
21:37in your methods training here as well
21:39and the last piece which I was only exposed to
21:41when I went into industry and worked in Silicon Valley
21:44was programming and data analysis skills.
21:46And so I think one of the things we emphasize here
21:49is giving you an exposure to each of those three pillars.
21:52Obviously in two years, no one becomes an expert,
21:54true expert in really anything.
21:57But what the goal of our methods training
21:59is to expose you to those three pillars
22:02and then how to link them.
22:03And so,
22:04understanding the subject matter,
22:07knowing how to access and analyze data
22:10in the increasingly rich data available to us.
22:12And on the statistical skills as well as causal inference
22:16and causal reasoning needed to draw inferences
22:19from that data
22:20and if you can put those three pieces together
22:22and have a foundation to build on that,
22:24wherever you go next, whether it be government,
22:26whether it be industry, whether it be advocacy,
22:28I think you'll be in a great great position
22:31to contribute to evidence based reform,
22:34evidence based science and evidence based policy
22:36and I'll just leave it there.
22:38- Great, Shelley.
22:40- Thanks Jacob.
22:42Mark asked me to talk about the public health law class
22:45and also about some of the experiential
22:47learning opportunities that you'll have
22:48which both give you the
22:50experience of applying some of what you're learning
22:53in a theoretical sense in classes
22:55but also making an enormous contribution
22:57to the community and to the state of Connecticut.
23:00I wanna emphasize the point that Mark made.
23:02Connecticut is a very small state.
23:04It's also a very blue state at the moment
23:06and it's a very thinly staffed state at the legislature
23:09and we've had students do extraordinary work
23:12supplementing the work of state agencies,
23:14helping state legislatures and really bringing
23:18the expertise of the school of public health
23:21into the policy making process in Connecticut.
23:24So the public health law class,
23:26I created a number of years ago
23:28because law is basically the foundational element
23:32of public health practice
23:33and I devised it because,
23:36in a way that it would be tailored to people who had
23:39little or no experience in law.
23:41'Cause many of you will be coming in
23:43with backgrounds in science.
23:44So one of the things I do is expose you
23:47to some of the key principles of public health law
23:49and the foundational elements of it.
23:51Constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law
23:54court law,
23:55environmental law, occupational health and safety law.
23:58And how the law comes together
24:01to both give the authority and the responsibility
24:05to federal state and local public health agencies
24:08what the limits of that power are.
24:10We're seeing a lot of that right now of
24:12what is the limit on
24:14the ability to quarantine isolate people
24:16by public health order.
24:18In chronic disease, what's the limit on commercial speech
24:21and what can public health authorities
24:24try to do to shape the information environment?
24:28And I also focus in the course
24:31on law itself as a structural and social determinant.
24:35It's an emerging field of legal epidemiology.
24:37In the course, I use both primary legal sources,
24:40supreme court decisions, circuit court decisions,
24:43statutes, regulations and case studies.
24:46In one class we looked at the water challenges
24:50in Fort Michigan and,
24:52did a little role playing to watch how
24:54the different policy positions were taken by
24:58different administrative actors.
25:02If you're interested in law,
25:03I also have an appointment at the law school
25:05as a clinical lecturer and in the last decade
25:08a very robust programs has developed there.
25:11There's the Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy
25:14the global health justice partnership.
25:16The program for the study of
25:18reproductive justice and others
25:19and multiple law school courses.
25:22Administrative law being a key one,
25:24food and drug law, health care law, food law and the like.
25:27And again, particularly the courses of a lecture course
25:30as you have easy admission to.
25:32In terms of experiential learning,
25:36I direct a health policy practicum
25:40and we've been placing students
25:42who work directly with state legislatures
25:46with representative state senators.
25:48In Connecticut, our state senators have a
25:51single staff person for constituent and policy work.
25:54Our representatives share,
25:55four of them share a single policy person and so,
25:58we've found that our students end up becoming
26:00the chief policy repositories of knowledge
26:03for many of the state legislatures.
26:05We've had people working in the office of
26:07healthcare strategy in the department of social services,
26:10which runs our Medicaid program
26:11and the department of public health
26:13in the commissioners office right now,
26:14we have a student working.
26:16In an advocacy organization in the state
26:17like Planned Parenthood,
26:19the Connecticut public health association, and others.
26:23You will be required to do an internship
26:26between your first and second year
26:29but the internship requirement
26:30can also be satisfied by doing a practicum.
26:34There are so many opportunities, particularly now
26:37with this epidemic to be doing consulting work
26:39and policy work.
26:40I know the students who've been in the practicum
26:42and two of them are a part of this,
26:45will be able, in the student section of this
26:48background or, to give you a sense of the experience
26:52of working in these environments,
26:53but it gives you real world practice
26:55and a chance to apply your skills
26:57and a chance to make a difference, frankly.
26:59And
27:00we really need
27:02every hand on deck at this moment in time, it feels.
27:07- Chima why don't you go next?
27:12- Sure, thanks Mark.
27:14I'm gonna spend just a minute or two
27:17talking to you about some of the research opportunities
27:20or at the very least,
27:22the pathways to research opportunities
27:24that are available to you here at Yale.
27:26The first thing that I should do is actually underscore
27:30a point that I think both Abby and Shelley made.
27:35At this type of university, at this university in particular
27:39we very much encourage you to reach out
27:44to other departments,
27:45to other institutions across the university
27:48where there are a variety of opportunities
27:50that is both in the law school, as Shelley mentioned,
27:53that's in the school of management.
27:55That is increasingly in the med school as well.
27:59The second thing that I should underscore
28:00is something that Abby said.
28:02While I'm about to talk to you
28:04about some potential pathways
28:05to research opportunities,
28:07I would also encourage you to take your time
28:10in evaluating kind of the number of opportunities
28:13that are gonna be available to you at the beginning
28:16because that will only expand over time.
28:19That being said, I think there's three major pathways
28:23to acquiring research opportunities for YSPH students.
28:28The first, which I've alluded to,
28:30are job postings all around the university.
28:35It is increasingly the case that
28:37just with the skills that you come in with
28:39and the skills that you acquire over time
28:42that you are very valuable for research teams
28:45across the university.
28:47You have subject matter knowledge that is growing everyday
28:52and some of the methods skills that Jacob talked about,
28:57you will also be able to contribute to analytic designs
29:01and the analysis of papers and research projects.
29:05So there are, both within YSPH
29:08and then across the university,
29:10postings that are available for students
29:13that will tell you exactly what
29:15faculty members or research institutes needs and exactly
29:20and we'll give a really detailed
29:22instructions about the qualifications
29:25that these folks are looking for.
29:27I encourage you to look into and apply for those.
29:32Beyond that though,
29:34I think I would also encourage you
29:36to reach out to individual faculty members
29:39to find projects, to find subject areas
29:43that are tailored to the skills or at least
29:47responsive to the things that are most interesting to you.
29:52In any given year, I probably work with two to three
29:58MPH students on research projects.
30:02They become a staple and really valuable part of my team.
30:07I'll go back for one second and
30:10also underscore the fact that
30:12there are many faculty members that have
30:15folks from other research institutes
30:18reach out to them looking for students
30:21to be a part of their team.
30:23David Paltiel who's a faculty member who's not here today
30:26but also leads our modeling concentration,
30:29keeps a roster of students because it is often the case
30:33that folks want to reach out to him
30:35and identify students that might be able to help
30:38with their research projects.
30:39So pathway number one was of course,
30:44listed postings that are out there
30:46and you can reply to them.
30:47Pathway two is reaching out to individual faculty.
30:50We all have open door policies
30:52and if we ourselves don't have the bandwidth
30:55to work with more students at that particular time,
30:58we are glad to kind of facilitate conversations
31:00with other folks who may.
31:02Pathway three is that there are a number of kind of
31:05supporting roles that faculty can parlay on research ideas.
31:09That is, it is often the case that a student comes to me
31:12with a specific research idea that I'm glad to consult with.
31:16Consult on, or talk with them about.
31:19There are also, if the thesis project process
31:22which I'm sure we'll talk about at some other point here,
31:26and faculty are often very glad to respond to the student's
31:31particular research ideas
31:33as opposed to students joining the research projects
31:37that are already existing and ongoing among the faculty.
31:41So I think those are the three main pathways to
31:45for students to engage in research and I encourage you
31:49to think about all of that.
31:52- All right so I'm gonna briefly step in and
31:55talk a little bit about what we'll think of as kind of
31:59some of the culminating experiences
32:01that are part of the program.
32:03One, Chima just referred to which is doing a masters thesis.
32:08Unlike some of the other departments in the school,
32:11doing a masters thesis is optional
32:14and reserved for students who have something
32:17that they want to devote that time and energy to.
32:21It's the equivalent of two courses
32:23so the opportunity cost comes up
32:25that Abby will acquaint you with
32:26'cause she's now been exposed to it.
32:29The things you give up in order to do a thesis.
32:32In this case, a couple of classes, is pretty high.
32:35And so we have typically 20 to 25% of our students
32:41doing a thesis
32:43and that allows them to focus in on a particular topic area
32:48and delve into it deeply.
32:51The second culminating experience
32:54that all the students in the policy track have
32:57is the capstone seminar.
32:59A course that will be taught starting next year
33:01by Jamie Tam.
33:03The capstone seminar does a couple of things
33:07that we think are unique and we hope,
33:11helpful to your educational experience.
33:14First, we spend time in the capstone
33:17helping people clarify their professional identity.
33:21What are the different ways in which each of you
33:25in your professional careers as health policy
33:28analysts and activists,
33:31wish to combine the analytic skills
33:34that you get at Jacob's class
33:36with the advocacy skills that you'll get in
33:39various kind of practicum settings
33:41with some more deeper conceptual modeling skills
33:45that you get integrated throughout the curriculum.
33:48How do you balance those different pieces?
33:51How do you put them together into a professional identity?
33:55And that is, we hope, helpful
33:58as people begin to launch themselves in transition
34:01from being students to being actual actors,
34:05sources of change in the world.
34:09There is also the opportunity, as part of the capstone,
34:14to do what is essentially a mini thesis
34:17for those who are not doing their own thesis.
34:20For people who are doing a thesis,
34:21they adapt it for this.
34:23There's a capstone project which is again,
34:26designed to help people identify what really matters to them
34:30and start applying their skills to a policy domain.
34:35Often, very far reaching.
34:37Global, domestic, health, social policy.
34:40Anything that has important consequences
34:43for health and welfare,
34:45that's an opportunity to pursue and develop
34:49that focal area as part of the capstone.
34:53All right so we're gonna end our faculty representations.
34:58Now we're gonna turn things over to people
35:00you can trust a little more,
35:02Tiffany and Leila, to talk about their experiences.
35:08- Thanks Mark and thanks to all of our professors
35:10who gave a really (audio cutting out)
35:13as well as the skill sets that we really build.
35:16So I'm just gonna talk about really quickly,
35:18the orientation experience as well.
35:21Kind of like what to expect slash look out for
35:24during your first year.
35:25More on the kind of student facing side of things.
35:29So for orientation, the health policy department
35:33is really special and really cool
35:34because we do our own orientation in conjunction
35:38to the school wide orientation.
35:40So we just kind of want to do this
35:42because we kind of wanna built the cohort feeling very early
35:46and to be honest, this was my favorite part
35:49and I think I can speak for Leila as well,
35:51this is our favorite part of orientation hands down.
35:55So what we begin with is just that we reach out
35:57to you guys over the summer just to check in with y'all,
36:00learn a little bit about you guys
36:03and kind of just see
36:04what's going on with your lives right now
36:06what kind of drove you to come here.
36:08Then we distribute out an orientation guide
36:11that gives you a little bit of just information about
36:13who our professors are as people as well as
36:17who the second years are
36:18and letting you guys get to know also,
36:21who is gonna be in your class
36:22and who you'll be spending more hours with
36:25than you can even count.
36:28So we start off with just an orientation
36:30that kind of orients you to who everyone is
36:33as well as just some fun things about New Haven like,
36:36what are our favorite pizza places and things like that.
36:39Then once you guys get here, we break you off into
36:43little orientation families
36:45that go on for your entire time here.
36:47We really do feel like the policy department
36:50is one really really big family
36:52and we're all just kind of smaller families within it.
36:54So these orientation families kind of serve to
36:57help you feel like you're not alone
37:00'cause it's gonna be a very isolating time
37:02and a very jarring time as a transition period
37:06so these kind of serve to kind of orient you
37:09because you'll be getting two second year policy students
37:12to start orienting you once you get here
37:16and these kind of just serve as
37:17places that you can check in and feel free
37:19that you can talk to someone about any of your feelings.
37:22I eman everyone is open, all the professors are,
37:24all the second years
37:25and I'm sure first years will be the same but
37:27these kind of families give you a little bit
37:29more space and leeway to kind of just talk about
37:32anything you're feeling.
37:33So we kind of start off with those
37:36and then throughout the year, within your families
37:38as well as within the policy department,
37:40we do a lot of fun events such as happy hour, trivia nights
37:45and things like that.
37:46Just to check in with everyone
37:48and just have fun as like a department
37:51and not get bogged down by all the more skill set things
37:54that we all have to do and things like that.
37:56So that's kind of the orientation aspect of it.
37:59So what are just some things that
38:01you can expect during your first year?
38:03So this was already kind of mentioned earlier.
38:05You're pretty much locked in to your courses
38:06but I thought this was super great
38:09because it really does build your toolbox
38:11of policy analytical skills that you get to use
38:15in not only future classes but start to refine
38:18and you can use these out
38:19for whatever your career aspirations are
38:22which is really great.
38:23Also the change has been,
38:25like Mark and Abby had both mentioned,
38:27it's changed a little bit in that now
38:30you have two empty spots during your spring semester
38:34which is really great because then you can start
38:35you can just already start learning about
38:38what you are interested in
38:40and start kind of practicing those things.
38:43I only had one spot at the time
38:45so I used it on the practicum which was
38:47also hands down an amazing course,
38:49everyone should join it, Shelley's amazing so,
38:52it was a really great time for me to kind of learn about
38:56what is the differences between practice space,
38:58public health, basically how policies work
39:01and then the differences to that to research work.
39:04So as a lot of the other professors have kind of alluded to,
39:08the first year is pretty stretched thin
39:11because of all the required courses
39:13that you are supposed to be taking
39:15but like we said, definitely don't overload yourself.
39:18Like, research can wait.
39:20It is only two years but also, two years.
39:23You have time, a month is not a big deal.
39:26We would actually recommend instead of doing
39:29research or getting bogged down by student organizations
39:34or anything like that, go to all these talks.
39:36There's so many great opportunities at YSPH
39:39and at Yale larger
39:41that we have so many amazing people who come in and talk,
39:44both practitioners as well as researchers
39:46who come like to talk about all their crazy things
39:49that they're doing in the world
39:50so it's a really great time to figure out
39:52what you're most passionate about
39:54or maybe what you're just not as passionate about.
39:56And what it looks like to be public health practitioners.
39:59Additionally, because you'll be spending so much time
40:03in classes and more specifically time with your cohort,
40:07you'll be
40:08best friends by the end of it
40:10and you get to really learn about each other
40:13and as much as you learn from your profs,
40:15as trite as it is to say,
40:17you learn so much from your peers as well
40:20and during your second semester when
40:21quite frankly all of your classes will be together,
40:24you'll have so much time to learn about yourself
40:29but also learn from the wealth of knowledge
40:31that your peers also have to give to you.
40:37- Leila.
40:39- And I'll dive into more about what you can expect
40:41for your second year.
40:43But I absolutely wanna echo everything Tiffany has said
40:45and a lot of our professors have said here.
40:47Your first year is great 'cause you get to build
40:50and plan for your second year.
40:52Personally, I came back to school to broaden and generally
40:56understand public health
40:57and understand healthcare a little bit better
40:59outside of my niche so,
41:01I loved being able to get that foundation
41:03from the first year
41:05but now I've been using my second year kind of as a,
41:08choose your own adventure.
41:09You have a lot more space in the schedule, as you can see.
41:12You can do a track like Tiffany's doing.
41:13There are a couple of other tracks
41:15but you could also really build your own track
41:17and figure out which courses, not just at YSPH
41:21but across the schools, really work for you.
41:25I also highly encourage practice space learning.
41:28I think that that's where a lot of my,
41:30where I've been able to take things that I've learned
41:32from my first year from my other classes
41:34and directly apply them
41:36in courses like the practicum or other clinics
41:38either at the law school or
41:40projects with the business school or forestry.
41:44You're able to dive into them
41:46but also have the security of
41:48consulting with your professors, with your advisor,
41:50with other professors just to make sure that
41:53you have a good sense of what's going on.
41:55But it also allows you to be creative
41:57and try new things, try things that you might not be
42:00totally comfortable with
42:01because you're with other folks who are also learning
42:03and also trying to get those skills.
42:05So it's not just about flexing your expertise
42:07but actually trying out new things in a
42:10very safe and encouraging
42:15environment so, I've thoroughly enjoyed those.
42:20You also get a chance to really work within the community.
42:22So one of the benefits of not pigeon holing yourself
42:26or being bogged down by responsibilities in your first year
42:29is that you can rise up and take on more in your second year
42:32and take on some leadership, maybe dive a little bit more
42:35or find a way to connect your academic experience
42:38to what's going on at the state level,
42:40again for either in the practicum
42:43or either with the state legislature,
42:45commissions that work with the state
42:47but you are able to really take what you're learning
42:49inside the classroom and apply it outside the classroom.
42:53You
42:54can
42:55like I said, look at other relevant courses
42:57outside of other schools.
43:00I personally am taking classes almost at every other school
43:04or one at Jackson, one at the International school,
43:07the law school and the business school so,
43:09it's the choose your own adventure that I mentioned earlier.
43:12You're really able to find the classes that work for you.
43:15Professors across campus are very welcoming
43:18and very eager to have other perspectives come in.
43:22Especially since by your second year,
43:24by your second semester, you're already
43:27you've got a lot of public health expertise under your belt
43:29that you can bring into other classes.
43:34You are also able to
43:37take on more
43:39TF positions that I think are great to build your cohort.
43:43Not just among your peers
43:44but I think it allows you to build deeper relationships
43:47with your professors too.
43:50As they've all mentioned,
43:52they're, have great open door policies
43:54which I've used maybe too often
43:56to talk about really anything, right?
43:58And I think that is the beauty of this program
44:01and this school that, you know,
44:04you get to know your professors in the classroom
44:05but you also really have the chance to get to know them
44:08outside of the classroom, the work that they're doing,
44:10their research, their backgrounds
44:12and you know, this wealth of knowledge that's not
44:15course bound or curriculum bound is really helpful
44:18for someone like me and probably some of you out there,
44:22in figuring out what your next steps are
44:23and what you wanna focus on.
44:25Or if you know exactly what you wanna focus on,
44:26how to make sure that you are
44:28really getting the most out of the program.
44:32We've talked a little bit about the thesis, no thesis
44:35requirement in health policy.
44:37But like Mark said, you can use your capstone project
44:41to hone in on a certain issue and create a mini thesis
44:46or use projects in all of your classes
44:49to create a sort of portfolio
44:51that shows that you have accumulated this expertise
44:54in either one subject matter or multiple
44:58to show that you're, if you're not doing a thesis,
45:00you're still gaining very
45:03concrete and very specific expertise
45:05in a certain topic.
45:07And the last thing I wanna say that Tiffany's also kind of
45:11mentioned is that,
45:12you spend a lot of time with your cohort
45:14which is wonderful.
45:15I think that we're all
45:17a little bit sad not to be doing this in person
45:19because the energy would've been a little different but
45:22on the note of families, I had zoomed with my family
45:26from when I was a first year last night,
45:27so I think these relationships are really strong
45:30and they really hold.
45:31And it's something that I loved about
45:34the second year more so because
45:35you get to know your friends and your classmates
45:37in the first year but you get to rely on your
45:40friends and classmates in your second year
45:42in a way that you really might not have known them
45:45your first year so.
45:47The second year, you're,
45:48you're all kinda taking classes in different places.
45:50Your schedules look different
45:51but you're able to come back and kind of
45:54nerd out and talk about the things you've been learning
45:56and doing separately but coming back together
45:59either at the capstone or if it's a reading group
46:03or if it's coffee or if it's happy hour,
46:04you're creating these relationships that will
46:07last a little bit longer.
46:10- Great, thanks wonderful summary.
46:13In our last few minutes together,
46:15we're just gonna patch in a few things
46:18that may not have been fully articulated yet
46:22just to make sure you get a comprehensive view
46:25of the program and the one I'm going to start with
46:28before I open it up is this idea of creating
46:31kind of concentration areas.
46:33The equivalent of a minor to your major
46:36which is in health policy.
46:38And as was pointed out, there are some
46:41formal concentration areas maintained by the school.
46:45Global health,
46:46policy modeling,
46:47regulatory affairs.
46:49And a number of policy students will go into each of those
46:53in any given year
46:55but you can also, as I think both Tiffany
46:58and Leila emphasized, you can make your own.
47:01You can do the equivalent and put together
47:03two three four courses that intersect in a way
47:07that you're designing your own minor, essentially,
47:11and we encourage and help you to do that.
47:14All right, what else would anyone else like to add
47:17that we might have missed or under emphasized so far?
47:23- I'll jump in to start.
47:25One thing I just wanted to mention
47:26and this is partially my way of publicly thanking Tiffany
47:29for being such a wonderful teaching fellow,
47:32is that I think another great way to learn
47:34and particularly for those of you
47:35interested in consolidating your knowledge
47:37in a particular course,
47:38as well as potentially going on into a career teaching
47:41and teaching applies whether you're in academia
47:44or whether you're trying to explain
47:46a complicated concept in a meeting or to stakeholders
47:49that the MPH students play a really critical role
47:53as teaching assistants and teaching fellows.
47:55In my particular class, I have three teaching fellows.
47:58One who's a PhD student and two who are MPH students
48:02who've done very well in the course and
48:05I think it's wonderful for the faculty.
48:07I think one of the really nice things about graduate school
48:09is that we are more peers really than anything else
48:14and so at least with my team, I hope
48:17probably if there is such a hierarchy,
48:20it might have Tiffany at the top
48:22rather than anything else, but we work together as a team,
48:26we talk through the concepts carefully.
48:28I really get a good read from my teaching fellows
48:30as to whether I'm explaining things clearly to the students
48:33and I think it can be a very enriching experience.
48:35It certainly has been for me
48:36but I think as well for the students
48:38and there's many many opportunities
48:39for those who are interested
48:40so I thought I would flag that as a nice learning path
48:44that we haven't really discussed in depth yet.
48:48- I have a thought that I wanna add
48:50because I know when I was deciding among law schools
48:52decades ago it was, why would you wanna come to Connecticut?
48:56I had an image of people in Connecticut walking around
48:59in green pants and being on golf courses all the time.
49:01And in my years here, I've come to understand that
49:05while we have some of the richest zip codes in the nation,
49:07we also some of the poorest and in some cases,
49:10they lie within three blocks of each other.
49:12And so we have enormous capacity
49:14to address the health inequities that exist
49:17because we have a lot of wealth in the state
49:20so it really becomes a matter of political will
49:22and so to me it's always been a very interesting place
49:25to think about how do you get to a consensus
49:28that, investing in the social determinants of health
49:32really really matters
49:33because we have the capacity to do it in the state.
49:37- And I'd like to build on what Shelley said.
49:39Just to give you some concrete examples,
49:42I have advisees who are working with a local representative
49:45in Connecticut right now on current health issues
49:48as part of one of their courses.
49:50As part of their practicum.
49:51I have
49:53advisees
49:54who
49:55spend time
49:56the free time they have, will get on a train
49:58and go to New York City.
49:59Not right now, but last semester.
50:04There are
50:05the interesting thing about New Haven is,
50:07everything is close
50:09it's not just that there's rapid shifts that you can see
50:13and social determinants of health by walking a few blocks.
50:15It's that your ability to access the policy makers
50:19who can influence that is also very easy.
50:22You can get on a train to Hartford, it's not that far.
50:25The individuals who have a lot of influence in New Haven,
50:29are often connected to the university
50:31or one degree separate.
50:32So your ability not just to learn about the structures
50:36that lead to the effectiveness of policy
50:40or the implementation of evidence based policy,
50:42at Yale it's not just about the curriculum.
50:44It's about you getting to apply that in practice
50:47with people who are doing the work of policy making everyday
50:51and what it means is,
50:52you may come in with no idea exactly what you want as a job.
50:57You could spend, your second semester,
51:00one of your courses could be
51:02a practicum working with someone in government to figure out
51:05if that's really what you want.
51:07And maybe you figure out that you don't like that
51:08and so you spend your summer
51:09doing something totally different.
51:11So it's not just the education you get in the classroom here
51:15it's the opportunities and education you get about yourself
51:18about what really gets you going,
51:20what you're passionate about
51:21and where you will fit in order to make a difference
51:24that will also work for what you want in life.
51:27We give you those opportunities through coursework,
51:30through practicums, through just living in a state
51:32that is really very accessible, and at the same time,
51:36if you want a day off
51:37and you wanna go somewhere more exciting,
51:39you can go to the mountains or the beach
51:40very easily from here and you can go to New York City.
51:45- So I'll chime in for a second.
51:49I happen to think that the most important
51:52public health problems are the ones that have
51:55both a local significance and a national relevance.
52:00And the folks before me just spent a bunch of time
52:03talking about how easy it is
52:05to get into the local policy sphere here
52:08and to conduct and be a part of impactful work.
52:12The other thing that you can do
52:13particularly through internships and the like,
52:17is spend some time in the federal arena.
52:19We have students that have done internships
52:22in all types of unique and interesting places
52:24where they can take some of the lessons
52:26that they've learned locally
52:27and figure out how to scale them
52:29or figure out what they might look like on a federal level.
52:33I think part of what you get from a program like this
52:37is the flexibility to do whatever it is that matters to you
52:41and more importantly to have a program
52:43that's willing and able to grow with you
52:45as your interests grow over time.
52:49- All right, that's great.
52:51I think as the official time keeper for this session,
52:54I'm going to bring us to a close and in so doing,
53:00to all of you who have stayed through the entire recording
53:04and are listening to us still at the end,
53:06let me just give you both a warm welcome
53:10and hope that you come and study with us starting next year
53:15but also if you have questions,
53:17we are going to circulate
53:21our emails so that you can follow up with any of us
53:24about things that were not entirely clear
53:27or simply things that you wanna pursue in more detail.
53:30And so we welcome your inquiries
53:34because we wanna help you make the best decisions
53:37at this important stage in your careers.
53:39So thank you all and thank you for joining us.