Member Spotlight - November 2020

Danielle wiggins, mha

Fun fact: I love to step! I started dance school at a young age and continued dancing in many forms throughout most of my life. While I love many genres of dance, I’ve always had a strong affinity for stepping. In college, I became the President of Cornell’s step team and realized I had a gift of creativity. I went on to develop many step shows for the step team as well as for my sorority. In addition to my aspiration to become the COO of a health system, I also hope to teach step to youth in large numbers and eventually open my own dance school.

Why NAHSE: I’ve met many prominent people in healthcare who were members of NAHSE and influenced my decision to join. They’ve always shared how much of a positive impact NAHSE has had on their careers, relationships, professional development, etc. My academic progress and career advancement has really been facilitated by mentors and friends who embrace a sense of community, and I was looking for an organization that would continue to introduce me to that. Based on everything I‘ve heard about NAHSE, this was the perfect organization to join.

What influenced my decision to go for my Masters: In undergrad I majored in Applied Economics and Management (Business) but was also always interested in going into healthcare due to my family’s suboptimal healthcare experiences and my desire to make real change. Growing up, my understanding of possible careers (and thus the possibilities to get into healthcare) was very limited. During my junior year in college, I took a course called “Population Health” which opened my eyes to the inequities and disparities in healthcare, as well as the inefficiencies of the US healthcare system. The course was also taught by the Associate Director of the Sloan MHA program at Cornell, Dr. Julie Carmalt, who was very influential in helping me realize the differences I could make by going into healthcare administration. My conversations with Julie, my experiences in her class, and my desire to pursue a career where I could tap into my passions for impactful business and improving healthcare led me to pursue my MHA in the Sloan program.