A senior at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, Grace Arbuckle loves everything about health services management. Growing up in Elwood, Indiana, she had a first-hand look at health administration.
“I heard about health services management through a family member that is an administrator of a long-term care facility, so I looked into it,” Arbuckle said.
Although she wasn’t sure about the field, she visited the Health and Life Sciences office on campus to learn more about it and quickly realized it was perfect for her.
“Working in health services management means options!” Arbuckle said. “I can literally work in any healthcare setting doing just about whatever I’m interested in on the administrative side – and you can’t get that with other majors.”
Arbuckle explained that having so many career options with the same degree is fascinating, but getting to know the faculty and staff of her program has been her favorite experience thus far.
“I feel like with other majors you never get to truly bond with the professors, but I have gotten to know all of my professors on a better level,” Arbuckle said.
In fact, Arbuckle has a couple of class favorites. “My favorite classes have been Advanced Healthcare Finance with Paul Lang, and Healthcare Marketing with Rebecca Carl.”
Arbuckle is involved in several volunteer organizations on campus, including the IUPUI OTEAM, Sigma Kappa, and the Undergraduate Association for the Fairbanks School of Public Health, but she also knows the importance of gaining professional experience in her field.
She not only completed an internship at Eskenazi Hospital last fall, but she is also currently interning at Community Health Network Touchpoint as a project coordinator assistant.
“There are so many opportunities for internships and potential employers one day,” Arbuckle explained. “Just on IUPUI’s campus we have five hospitals, and a few blocks down we have the Indiana State Department of Health.”
While she said she promotes the Health Services Management department as much as she can, Arbuckle said she wishes more people knew what it was. “I get students and adults asking me what my major is all the time. People just don’t know!”
If she had to describe her major to a child or someone with no prior knowledge of it, she said she would describe it as “the business side of healthcare. It’s a broad degree that can be used for multiple types of management in the healthcare field.”
After graduation, Arbuckle hopes to complete her Master's in Health Administration here at the Fairbanks School of Public Health."I am just a nerd who likes school enough to want to get her MHA," Arbuckle said. "I am most excited to graduate with the best friends I have made throughout the HSM program, and to one day work in long-term care administration."