Kendall Jackson ’24 MBA
A full circle healthcare journey
A devastating orthopedic injury in high school led Kendall Jackson down a three-year journey with the healthcare system. Thankfully, she fully recovered, but it was her experience as a patient that would later inspire her passion for medicine. It also sparked a broader interest in transforming the system itself — a dedication to both improving access and affordability of high-quality care for patients.
How did that patient-first mindset lead her to put medical school on hold — at WashU, one of the leading schools of medicine in the U.S. — in order to pursue a One-Year MBA at Kellogg?
“In my pursuit of being a really excellent doctor and delivering the best patient care, I came to understand that knowing the business side was really important,” Kendall explained.
MBA, Kellogg School of Management, One-Year Program
A.B. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University
“Having people who understand both the clinical side and the business side is foundational to being able to deliver the best patient care overall.”
Finding the right MBA
Kendall was seeking a program with a strong culture and community around healthcare. In that search, she found herself drawn to Kellogg’s robust healthcare offerings, innovative curriculum and strong sense of community.
“The opportunity to talk to people who are working on their own different segments of the healthcare industry gets me energized and excited every single day,” she said. “I was, at first, drawn to the academic investments that Kellogg has been making in the space. But I soon came to realize that the community aspect of the Healthcare at Kellogg Pathway is unique in terms of the ability to come together with students across different programs and backgrounds through offerings like the Deep Dive Course and the Kellogg Business of Healthcare Conference.”
In fact, it was during a Deep Dive immersion weekend, that Kendall had the opportunity to talk about the most important issues facing healthcare today with MBA students from all programs, as well as faculty and alumni across the industry. “We were having this invigorating conversation about how value-based care is being realized, how it's being practiced at the moment, patients' reactions and providers' reactions across specialties and professional backgrounds.”
Building bridges across healthcare silos
Kendall believes that fostering communication between providers, payers and other stakeholders is critical to improving the patient experience and outcomes. “There are so many stakeholders in the complex healthcare ecosystem and all of them really play very important roles."
“How do you get all of those stakeholders together to create a system that is designed to keep patients at the center and to think about the outcomes overall?”
Through her time at Kellogg, she’s valued connecting with students, faculty, and alumni in an attempt to begin to answer it. “Professor Garthwaite likes to say in our healthcare strategy class that everybody is working in their own part of healthcare because while healthcare is technically one industry, it is actually so many different sub-industries.”
Kendall has been grateful for the experiences at Kellogg that have allowed her to break down these traditional industry silos. “As a future provider, I have certain ideas, but until I talk to someone who is living on the ground of actually getting a drug to market in the pharma space, or until I talk to someone who's thinking about how you design plans to reduce costs and increase access, I can't really bridge them,” she said. “It is a great experience to get to think about how we move outside of our silos and work across this ecosystem of players and stakeholders to keep that focus on patient care and patient outcomes at the center.”
Her time at Kellogg, meeting with leaders across healthcare and business, has made her excited about tackling these big questions as she prepares for a career combining clinical medicine with health system delivery. “Kellogg has really fostered a community where all of those different stakeholders are coming together, forming real relationships and real connections, and having these difficult conversations to bridge that gap.”
“There are so many people who are passionate about healthcare in their own individual way. To get to talk to them about what their experience was before Kellogg, and what they're going back to afterwards, has been motivating to me as I think about my future career delivering high-quality patient care”
Optimism to Impact
Hear more about Kendall's experiences as an MBA graduate and MD candidate in our four-part documentary series. You'll also hear from more experts on the future of healthcare and Kellogg’s role in shaping business leaders.
