Obama Visit

On Wednesday, April 25th, Obama came for the second time since my start at Iowa in Fall of 2009. Both times, I have been able to see him speak, which have been amazing opportunities, especially this past week. I was able to see him speak this time because I volunteered as part of my role interning for the Marketing and Communications for University of Iowa Healthcare. 


He talked about a topic that is on the top of any students' mind that is graduating....paying off student loans! Seeing as I will be graduating in two weeks, this was a very important topic and one that I tried to read up on. As for the promotion of President Obama's speech, it mainly focused around undergradaute loans and raising them to the interest rates at which my loans are already at. I could see why this would be a big deal, because those graduating with their Master degrees, on average earn more than those graduating with their BA.


I am grateful that I have a position lined up after graduation as an Administrative Fellow at a VA hospital in the Chicagoland and hope as the the economy continues to improve, more and more graduates find their way into a successful first position. 


However, being of the public health mind, I just read an update this morning on Huffingtonpost.com that the White House is threatening to veto a plan put forth by House Republicans to reduce student loan interest rates by pulling money from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a funding stream set aside by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to support preventative health initiatives across the country. In my mind, this would be devastating to public health measures outlined in the ACA and I would hope any of you that are entering the public health field to always pay attention to the POLICY details before standing behind any decision being proposed and to learn the politics behind statements by either side of the aisle.


~ Ryan

March Madness - April Recovery

So as you may have noticed, I took a little bit of a break in March. This was due to a lot of traveling I did over Spring Break and the two weeks after attending two conferences. I'll describe the conferences I attended, as one is an annual conference I have been going to the past three years as part of the Health Management and Policy Department and the other through my Aging Fellowship.

ACHE Congress

The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Congress is an annual conference for those who are interested in Healthcare Administration, including students enrolled in a Master of Health Administration (MHA) program like myself. I have been going to the conference for three years as part of my graduate program and have been able to network with many professionals that have led to internships and now my Administrative Fellowship at Hines VA Hospital starting in June 2012!

There is also an Alumni Networking event as part of the conference with the Health Management and Policy (HMP) department, which was especially fun this year because I got to reconnect with classmates that graduated last year (May 2011) and are now in their roles as fellows or entry level managers.

Overall, I love going to ACHE Congress and will be attending next year as an Alumni and Admin. Fellow of the Hines VA Hospital!

ASA Conference

The American Society on Aging (ASA) holds an annual conference that is focused on aging issues and is more practice based compared to the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) that holds a conference each year as well that is more researched focused. I have attended both, but GSA was in the fall, and ASA was just a week ago and ended on April 1st! ASA was a great experience that was available to me via my Aging Fellowship with the Center on Aging at the University of Iowa. It is an interdisciplinary fellowship that involves graduates students from Medicine, Nursing, Audiology, Education, Social Work, etc. It has been a great experience this year to be part of such a program and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the aging population.

The ASA conference was held in Washington, D.C. this year, which opened the opportunity for me to attend a policy advocacy day on the "Hill." I attended it with my classmate Nicole Egan, who is also in the fellowship. It was a great way to learn about the bills and laws being debated currently affecting the aging population and meet the Senators that are leaders in aging advocacy.