Internship Spotlight: Prerak Juthani ’22, Geisinger Medical Center

Prerak Juthani | July 15, 2021

Prerak Juthani ’22 focuses on improving day-to-day hospital operations and managing IT strategies at Geisinger Medical Center.

What did you do this past summer? We asked second-year MBA students to check in from their summer internships, where they applied the lessons of their first year at Yale SOM.

Prerak Juthani ’22, a joint-degree student at Yale SOM and the Yale School of Medicine
Internship: Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania

Hometown: Cupertino, California
Pronouns: he/him/his
Clubs and Affiliations: Startup & Entrepreneurship Club member, Career Development Office (CDO) career advisor, Office of Career Strategy (OCS) drop-in graduate peer advisor, YouTuber, podcaster, runner
Favorite SOM Class: Basics of Economics
Favorite SOM Professor: Michael Sinkinson, who does an excellent job teaching the fundamentals of economics to the entire incoming first-year class (regardless of their previous exposure to the subject!).
Favorite New Haven eatery: Barracuda (the yuca nachos are a must-try)
Bonus facts: I have my own YouTube channel and podcast, Red, White & Brown, which I’ve been creating over the last few years. The channel is all about my personal experiences and increasing productivity, and my podcast is about the unique experiences of South Asians within the United States.

I am working as a medical student business fellow at the Geisinger Medical Center, where I’ve been working with executive leadership to develop a business plan for high-priority system initiatives, such as improving day-to-day hospital operations and managing IT strategies. Geisinger is one of the biggest integrated health systems in United States, serving more than three million residents throughout 45 counties in central, south-central, and northeast Pennsylvania. It’s truly an incredible opportunity because I get to directly communicate with the CEO and CMO (Dr. Ryu and Dr. Hartle, respectively), both of whom are MDs and have a great understanding of what it means to integrate medicine and business.

Early on, I helped determine the policies of masking within the hospital. Specifically, I helped create guidelines for where it would be appropriate for vaccinated individuals to be unmasked within the hospital and where individuals needed to wear masks, regardless of their vaccination history. Currently, I am working on a digital engagement project that helps to enhance the interface through which physicians and patients interact. I’m also helping the social media team create a grassroots marketing strategy to help increase brand awareness and community engagement.

I took a healthcare finance and policy class at SOM that definitely has helped with many of the concepts that I’ve seen at play at Geisinger. I also think that Sourcing and Managing Funds, as well as Basic Microeconomics, was foundational to understanding the way that capital flows in and out of the healthcare system.

My internship continued to be in-person because the administrators felt that was critical to the overall experience; however, some of the meetings were virtual at the start of the internship due to general CDC guidelines. Upon arriving, my administrators did a great job ensuring I had several meet-and-greets with the executive leadership across multiple domains at Geisinger. This allowed me to get integrated into the workflow very quickly, and I was able to gain a deeper insight into the fascinating projects that Geisinger was undertaking across all its domains—from marketing all the way to expansion strategy. Every executive I met with was kind and welcoming; they wanted me to get involved and were open to answering all my questions!

It's truly an incredible opportunity because I get to directly communicate with the CEO and CMO—both of whom are MDs and have a great understanding of what it means to integrate medicine and business. I can’t think of another internship that would give me this level of exposure to the C-suite and the day-to-day behind-the-scenes meetings that keep a hospital system running. I would highly recommend this internship to anyone interested in healthcare administration.

I am genuinely appreciative of Yale SOM’s core curriculum. I had no business background at all prior to SOM, and I think the curriculum did a great job of getting me up to speed.