Adele B. Shartzer

I began graduate school in the summer of 2003, just several months after finishing up my Bioethics degree. I attended the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University , pursuing an MPH in Health Policy. GW's proximity to the nation's capital enabled me to find an internship while in graduate school at one of the many non-profits in Washington , DC . I worked for nearly a year at Families USA, an organization seeking access to quality health care for all Americans. After I finished the coursework for my MPH in the fall of 2005, I began working for the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, which is another health-related non-profit in Washington. I still work at NIHCM Foundation and love being in Washington .

The skills I developed during my undergraduate Bioethics program have proved invaluable to me during grad school and at work. Health policy demands an ability to compare and evaluate arguments; though the setting and substance may have shifted from the classroom to conference room and from moral status to insurance status, the analytical approach is very much the same. I have also benefited from the exposure to academic research methods and the practice in digesting dense reading material I gained during my Bioethics program. In addition, health policy requires succinct and clear thinking, writing and speaking. These skills were both expected and developed in my undergraduate Bioethics classes. Most importantly, my Bioethics training has helped me to remember that policies on access, coverage and quality of health care services matter fundamentally to individuals.