Healthcare at Kellogg: Inside the Deep Dive immersion program
By Claire Zulkey
This year marks the third installment of Healthcare at Kellogg’s Deep Dive immersion program, the only MBA course like it out there. Taught over a series of three jam-packed weekends, this popular course connects students from across the Full-Time, Evening & Weekend and Executive MBA Programs to learn from renowned healthcare researchers, meet practitioners at the forefront of the field and network with fellow students from around the world.
“Because it’s an intensive set of classes, it allows both students and alumni to deepen and broaden their healthcare network within Kellogg,” said Craig Garthwaite, the Herman R. Smith Research Professor in Hospital and Health Services, professor of strategy and the director of Healthcare at Kellogg (HCAK).
Each Deep Dive immersion course takes place over a series of weekends in Evanston, Miami and San Francisco. The course covers topics like healthcare strategy, biotech, value-based care, biopharmaceuticals and devices. But the lessons don’t stop when classes adjourn: The courses are bookended by networking panels, small group meals and happy hours where students and alumni trade ideas, experiences and takeaways. “We want to train a set of people to be key decision-makers in healthcare to have a positive impact on the world,” said Garthwaite. “The breadth of experience in the room creates a much richer set of conversations.”
“You’re getting healthcare strategy, healthcare services, pharma, startup, private equity and venture capital,” said Paul Campbell, clinical associate professor of strategy. “Students connect the dots across the healthcare value chain in a way they couldn’t if they took a healthcare class that didn’t have all these dimensions.”
The Deep Dive curriculum is informed by industry trends. Take, for example, this year’s focus on biopharma, with a course taught by Andy Pasternak ’93, former executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Horizon Therapeutics, who discusses the later-stage life cycle of biotech companies. “We bring together people with a wide range of academic and real-world experience,” said Garthwaite. “They’re going to help the students understand how to build a successful career.”
He believes the Deep Dive is the source of the best, most enriching conversations about healthcare at Kellogg, with a cross-section of experiences, ages, ideas and conversations not found in any other MBA program. To learn more, we chatted with four alumni and students about what they gained from their time in the Deep Dive. Here’s what they had to say:
Shifting into strategy
Physician and Evening & Weekend MBA student Federica Sidoti ’24 hopes to eventually move into a healthcare strategy role. Because the Deep Dive brings in industry leaders as lecturers who shape the curriculum, she walked away with learnings “that I could apply right away.”
She particularly appreciated her class with professor Peter Butler, a nationally recognized healthcare executive and former president of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “We learned about a cross-functional communication style and a way of putting everyone on the same page within a hospital — trying to understand how to have the inpatient people talk to my finance people talk to their regulatory people and all work towards the same goal,” she said.
Read about Federica’s classroom experience »
Understanding the big picture
In her day job, Executive MBA student Virginia Venable ’23 works as a client partner at a consulting agency and is responsible for building out its healthcare practice and go-to-market strategy. She particularly enjoyed how the course included diversity of students from the different Kellogg MBA tracks, healthcare roles and from cities around the world, all of whom gave her fresh points of view.
“The perspectives they brought to bear in the conversations produced some of the best dialogue in our classes,” she said. “I think any time you’re in a position where you are thinking more globally, where you’re thinking about broad perspectives within an industry like healthcare, you’re really benefited by that diversity of thought.”
Read about what Virginia valued most from the course »
Growing in confidence as a leader
Physician Dhaval Shah ’23, a recent Executive MBA graduate, has focused his career on caring for cancer patients. He joined the Kellogg MBA program because he began co-managing his practice with his colleague. Courses like the Deep Dive helped him gain skills and connections to keep growing on his path of becoming an executive in the field.
“I knew a little bit about the business part,” he said, “but I thought I needed more formal business training and management training to go into this role within my practice and possibly grow within the US Oncology network, or look at other senior leadership roles within the oncology space.”
Learn how the course is helping Dhaval advance his career »
Gaining exposure to new parts of the field
Two-Year MBA student Mara Walli ’24 pursued an MBA hoping to broaden her experiences beyond biotech. At the Deep Dive weekends, she found herself with a front-row seat, learning from industry leaders and making valuable connections with other students from across Kellogg MBA programs.
“There were all sorts of events throughout the different weekends where we got to mingle and get to know people from those other programs who we otherwise probably wouldn’t cross paths with organically,” she said.
Read how Mara used the course to build industry connections »