For Gianna Marino, the issue of healthcare disparities is personal.
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, Marino noticed differences between herself and her more wealthy friends. Her family sometimes visited free dental clinics and often waited weeks or months to see a doctor due to gaps in their health insurance. Marino’s friends, meanwhile, received healthcare right away.
“Seeing those divides just between myself and my friends and learning more throughout school, I came to realize there’s a lot of fractures and brokenness in the healthcare system,” Marino said. “That really solidified my passion for public health.”
Marino, who will soon graduate with a Master of Health Administration from the USC Price School of Public Policy, will now have the chance to help the sickest of patients access healthcare. She’s landed an administrative fellowship at Mayo Clinic, considered by some to be the best hospital system in the world.
Mayo Clinic’s Administrative Fellowship Program is a prestigious two-year program designed to fast-track top graduate students into management positions. Starting in July, Marino will rotate from department to department every three months, learning about the hospital systems’ finances, strategy, research and more. She’ll eventually get a chance to help manage a department as part of the fellowship, Marino said.
The fellowship will be Marino’s second stint at Mayo Clinic, having interned at the system’s Arizona hospital last summer. Her project at the time touched on her passion for improving access to healthcare. She worked to maximize the number of patients seen each day, while identifying those most in need. For scheduling, Mayo Clinic prioritizes patients with the most severe and complex conditions – regardless of their health insurance.
“The mission statement at Mayo is that the needs of the patient come first. We were always grounded in that. Every single day we would bring that up in meetings, even financial meetings,” Marino said. “It was just such a great experience. I really loved the organization. It was honestly the only place where I applied for a fellowship.”
For Marino, the Mayo Clinic fellowship is the culmination of a public health career path that started as a teenager and spanned the globe. In high school, she studied in Indonesia to get hands-on medical experience, going house-to-house to check residents’ blood pressure, blood sugar levels, height and weight. The visit showed her that disparities in healthcare access are even worse in some other countries.
“People have to stress more about going to the doctor than actually being sick,” Marino said. “Seeing it in other countries and seeing how it played out even in the wealthy community where I grew up, it’s just so rampant. It’s something that I am very passionate about.”
Master of Health Administration
Shape Systems for Healthier Communities
USC’s MHA offers unparalleled academic and professional training for careers in health administration and policy.
Find Out MoreWhile at USC, Marino interned at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), researching environmental impacts on public health, such as groundwater contamination. She’s currently a Graduate Consulting Resident at Kaiser Permanente – her second time working for the major healthcare provider – where she works on projects ranging from budgeting to identifying opportunities for automation.
“Gianna carries out her work with great care and professionalism,” said USC Price School Professor Jason Doctor. “Her interest in doing right by patients while succeeding in a competitive healthcare marketplace always carries the day.”
Marino credits the USC Price School for turning her passion for public health into a viable career.
“I think USC has the best MHA program,” Marino said. “We have a residency program where we’re able to work right now, like I am at Kaiser, while at school. No other program lets you get that hands-on work experience and sets you up with a job quite like USC does. And coupled with the professors, I think it’s an unparalleled experience.”
