Catherine Jacobson

Sure.

I never intended to go into health care.

So kind of fell into it.

My background is actually that I am a CPA, got my accounting degree and went up to Chicago with one of the big accounting firms.

And when you get up there, they give you this list of industries that you want to work in.

And I checked off hospitals and there was a background for that.

My mom was a hospital RN.

Her entire career and my first job actually coming in high school was washing dishes in that hospital.

So I know hospitals, they actually freak out a lot of people and especially accountants.

And so people didn't want to be on hospitals.

So I ended up being one.

But I started on the health plan side and was there for about eight years and then went over to the main medical center working in the C-suite.

Originally, I became the CFO, chief strategy officer, and it went from there.

So really had no intention of going into academic medicine.

And actually, when you start on the health plan side, you don't look at it through a very good lens because it's expensive.

And that's exactly what you don't want to have when you're on the health plan side.

And I really got the completely different view once I got on the inside over at the academic medical center and was actually able to see the specialization, the differentiated services.

Yeah, and I think Tom summed it up really well on the environment in which we work around culture and exactly the way I do it is around priorities.

So we have the same priorities as the faculty do in terms of seeing patients, research is important, educating students, service.

So all the priorities are shared, but the priorities are not necessarily the same in the same order on the same day because we have to take care of patients.