Melissa Davis ’17

As a clinician, I realized that I had to become a leader within my field in order to enact real change. The leadership development courses at SOM have helped me understand what kind of leader I am. I’m able to bring people together who wouldn’t necessarily fit together naturally, and create good synergies. That’s an important skill for anyone who’s managing teams. There are also a lot of electives that focus on different aspects of leadership. I took Heidi Brooks’ Interpersonal Dynamics course and Zoë Chance’s Mastering Influence and Persuasion, which ratcheted up my learning even more.

In an elective course called Healthcare Ventures, I met a clinician from Bridgeport Hospital who had an idea about how to decrease death rates in septic patients. We brought the idea to the class, vetted it, and by the end of the class, we had created a venture called SepsisDX. This application reminds clinicians treating septic patients of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines, which have been proven to decrease death rates by about 20%. We’re trying to increase compliance and, thereby, save lives. We have been a part of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute Fellowship program this summer and we’re looking for ways to further develop our product.

The return on investment in this program is huge. You take someone who has great potential and you let them spend two years molding that potential in all different aspects of business. During this time, they can find their passion, develop it, and bring it into the world concurrently with their studies. There are a lot of students who make transitions in their organizations while they’re still in the program. These are massive benefits for their careers and for their employers, present and future.