Michelle Davis-Dash ’25

I’ve enjoyed all my courses, but the most impactful so far has been Customer. I had an aha moment in this class that clarified my purpose for getting this degree, as well as my broader purpose in life. There’s a shift going on in medicine right now. With non-medical organizations taking over practices, more physicians are looking to broaden their knowledge base to pivot into business roles. Case studies in the Customer course showed me that I can potentially have a bigger impact on closing the wealth gap coming from a business perspective. Beyond healthcare, there are so many confounding institutional issues leading to ongoing disparities. I realized that poverty eradication is the real fight. Everything else is just a Band-Aid.

The skills and knowledge I’ve gained in this program have already been invaluable on the job. As a frontline worker during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was able to apply lessons about teamwork, consensus building, and operations streamlining just when we needed them most! The pandemic has been one of the most monumental periods of my career. We’ve grappled with the real-time chaos that comes with a deadly novel virus. The good, bad, and ugly—we witnessed it all. My expanded skill set was a gift.

I aspire to be a leader who ultimately leaves my piece of the world better than I found it, and I want to encourage the same process in my team members. I’d like them to look beyond themselves to discover the difference we can all make. That’s the spirit I’ve found in the Yale SOM community. You can’t discount the value of the connections and networks that we’ve built in this program or the ways that we’ll support each other in the future.