I did my MBA in Information Systems from NMIMS, that too Part Time. The best part of doing a Part Time MBA was that I left office at 5:30 PM IST. You see my Lectures were from 6:45 PM to 9:15 PM IST and since I was going home so Late I was avoiding all the Mumbai Traffic 😊. Along with that everyday I used to get a good Round Trip Darshan of Mumbai. Do note that from 2006 to 2009 the road from Seepz to Powai was being expanded. So I was super-duper Happy that I had college !!!
For those who have stayed here, the route was as below with an indication of Journey Start Time.
- Morning around 8:00 AM – Chembur To Andheri Seepz
- Evening 5:30 PM – Andheri Seepz to Vile Parle West
- Night 9:30 PM – Vile Parle West to Chembur
Now why am I telling you all this ??? Oh yeah I forgot this is not my Autobiography 😊, its supposed to be something interesting on Healthcare. But before we do a deep dive to understanding the nitty gritty of Healthcare I need to share few factors which helped me gain little knowledge on healthcare.
Obviously, the main reason was I was working in Healthcare IT, supporting the IT Systems of a Large Hospital. But during the time I did my MBA I was more focused on the Hospitals support systems viz. HR Payroll, Supply Chain and Financial Reporting. My Chicken Pox encounter gave me some idea about how a clinical encounter works but it did not give me all the details.
At the end of my MBA I was lucky to move into a R&D kind of a role, which was more focused on developing solutions in Healthcare (The Clinical Side). In simple terms if there is a market need for a Lab Information System we would look at what we can do in that area. This phase helped me gain insights into things I had not even heard of 😊 like SNOMED, ICD. But there was still one aspect missing, how can I easily explain these concepts to someone 😊.
Coming back to some aspects of my Autobiography, Ahem… You see when I was in School and college, I was not so great at speaking, especially in front of a crowd. I wanted to improve which is why I did my MBA and that gave me some confidence to speak 😊. Now I also wanted to teach, I don’t why but probably I thought it would help me learn something new. So I tried, spoke to everyone I could to see if I can teach. Somehow I got a guest lecture in one Management Institute which was around July 2010, after that got an opportunity to teach an entire subject of Healthcare Informatics but that was after another 2 years 😊. I was also lucky to get some good guidance from my Yoga teacher (Dr. Kaustubh Dhargalkar) who also teaches in various management colleges.
This was one of the toughest phases, I attended lectures lasting 2.5 hours but now I had to teach for 3 hours in one lecture. I could talk healthcare alright but I was I was downright Booooring 😊. I remember one of my students even told me “I am not understanding what you are saying” 😊😊. The subject was Healthcare Informatics which primarily deals with how US Healthcare works, and I was teaching students who did not know the ABC of US healthcare. Along with this I was teaching something which had a technical aspect to it and most of the students were well non – technical (Doctors, Pharmacy, Bachelors of Science). In hind sight having knowledge is one thing, but how are you able to share it with someone are two totally different things. Each year I taught the subject I learnt something knew, but above all, I learnt that the topic has to be made interesting 😊.
I was teaching the subject for the 4th time in 2015, that is when I probably tried to teach the subject very differently as compared to the previous years. Though some lectures might still have been little Booooring 😊, hopefully not all. I used to start my lecture with a Quiz mostly a Crossword, the class was divided into 4 groups, for each correct answer the group got points. Do note that these points did not count in the Final Exam. Also this time round instead of the lecture being of 3 hours each it was 2 for hours, phew… 😊. I used role plays, the class enacted their understanding of how a hospital functions. It was like literally watching a play, mind you they were good since they conceptualized the play in 5 minutes!!! This helped add a fun factor in the process. We leveraged the same example which the class enacted in the sessions taken ahead so there was a link maintained wherever possible.
In the end Group A won with I think 67 points. If you zoom in on the image (HI Class of 2015 – Pic courtesy my 1st batch Student – Prerna Sharma) one can make out the points written on the board, A – 67, B – 18 (most sincere group, one man army 😊), C – 49.5 and D 57.
Combing back from the trance of writing my Autobiography…. Hopefully I can try and add some Fun factor in what I am writing and can make this subject very Interesting, So let us come back to focus on caring for our Health shall we.