COE - Health Policy Conference 2020

Yuvaram Reddy, MBBS

Clinical and Research Fellow in Nephrology at BWH/MGH

PGY-5

03/14/2020

COE Health Policy Course

I was fortunate to attend the CoE Health Policy conference in March with a class of over 30 residents and fellows across the Harvard system. It was an engaging experience packed with experienced faculty from health policy

researchers to health policy administrators and several guest lecturers.

It was particularly inspiring to hear from the “disruptors” of the healthcare industry as they talked about ways to change the system to work for their providers and patients, as opposed to the current status quo. We were part of a mock negotiation session that helped me better understand the various opinions of stakeholders in the health care system. It helped me understand the intricacies of health policy. It allowed me to reconsider methods to influence policy in nephrology through developing an understanding of the history of the existing system, the powers that control the system, the rationale behind the system and successful (and failed) attempts to change the system.

If other residents and fellows are interested in health policy, I would recommend this course. Most of the audience had little to moderate background knowledge of health policy, which was perfectly fine/encourage. Don’t be shy about this rare opportunity to leverage your clinical knowledge to understand and hopefully influence health policy!