As with most lessons in business, understanding global healthcare is best done on the front lines. That’s the goal behind the Global Healthcare Experience course offered in the Kelley Business of Medicine Physician MBA program.
Thirty physician students in the healthcare elective course recently traveled to Cuba to learn how the country delivers public healthcare.
“From an academic or executive perspective, there’s really no substitute for first-hand experience,” said Sasha Fedorikhin, associate professor of marketing at Kelley. “In class, we can talk about the Cuban healthcare system and prepare students for experiencing it with assigned readings, but there are certain things you cannot appreciate without being there and actually seeing it.”
The program provides a list of academically vetted countries, which the students vote on during their first year in the program. Students select which country they’ll study and eventually visit during the six-week course offered in their second year. The countries are selected based on their unique healthcare perspectives and high contrast with the U.S. system. The current second-year class elected to spend the week in Havana, hearing lectures from Cuban healthcare providers, touring the city and visiting clinics, medical schools and public health centers. Physicians had the opportunity to examine both the business opportunities and the healthcare delivery models of the Cuban system.