AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
The American Health Law Association (AHLA) is the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization devoted to legal issues in the health care field with nearly 14,000 members. As part of its educational mission, AHLA's Speaking of Health Law podcasts offer thoughtful analysis and insightful commentary on the legal and policy issues affecting the health care system. AHLA is committed to ensuring equitable access to our educational content. We are continually improving the user experience for everyone and applying the relevant accessibility standards. If you experience accessibility issues, please contact accessibility@americanhealthlaw.org.
AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
Health Law Career Journeys: Mikayla Garvey, Senior Compliance Associate, Northwestern Memorial Healthcare
In this series from AHLA’s Early Career Professionals Council, health law professionals share their career paths, what they wish they had known as students, and what a typical day in their job looks like. In this episode, Rob Yates, Managing Consultant, Berkeley Research Group, speaks with Mikayla Garvey, Senior Compliance Associate, Northwestern Memorial Healthcare. Mikayla talks about her work on Northwestern’s privacy team, how she pivoted from a clinical educational path to a compliance one, why a Master of Jurisprudence was suited to her career in compliance, and the importance of taking advantage of law school resources.
Watch the conversation here.
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Speaker 2:This episode of A H L A speaking of health law is brought to you by A H L A members and donors like you. For more information, visit American health law.org.
Speaker 3:Hello, and welcome back to another installment of ALA's Health Law Career Journeys podcast series. Brought to you by the Early Career Professionals Council , or the E C P C. I'm your host, Robbie Yates. And my day job, I'm a managing consultant with Berkeley Research Group, where I provide governance and regulatory compliance advisory services to healthcare organizations across the industry spectrum. Our goal here with the series is to highlight the breadth of career paths in a H L A ALA's membership and encourage those who are just starting their careers in health law to explore all the different possibilities the space has to offer. I'm thrilled to learn more about today's guest, Mikayla Garvey, and share her experiences as a senior compliance associate at Northwestern Memorial Healthcare in Chicago. Mikayla , welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4:Excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Rob.
Speaker 3:Excellent. Well, let's jump right into it, shall we? Um, can you explain a little bit more about your role and what it looks like on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker 4:Sure. So that's kind of a tough question in that every day in my job is a grab bag , <laugh>. Um , when I was interviewed under my now director, he said something to the effect of, if you want a a boring but stable job, this is not the one for you , um, <laugh> , and that is not what I was looking for. So it's, it's a wide range of different things. We get, you know , um, inquiries about compliance issues all over the organization. I, in particular, work on our privacy team , so release of information , um, you know, those sorts of things. We do business associate agreements and, and lots of different kind of data privacy topics. So we'll do proactive monitoring. It's really a , a wide range. Anytime there's an issue or a question about privacy, it's , it's coming to us <laugh> .
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, I can, I can definitely understand that. Um, I, I practice in the compliance area myself, so you're definitely speaking my language here. Um, can you kind of give our audience a little , um, peek into the background of how you, how you got to this career , um, kind of your career path up at this point?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Um, so it started with a great teacher, actually <laugh> . Um, I've been lucky enough in my life. My mom is a university professor and, you know, I was kind of taught from a , a young age the value of teachers and, and using your resources. And I happened to have this professor. I went to DePaul University in Chicago, and I had this professor, Dr . Chriselle Molina , she taught my public health class. And at that time, I had been going through, I very much thought I was going to be clinical. Um , you know, I took all the nasty organic chemistry courses, et cetera. And I was literally in my senior year when she happened to have a colleague who worked in the law school as well as the undergraduate program, tell her about the Master's of Journals , prudence in Healthcare Compliance program. And when, you know, she told me about it. I had never heard of it, I didn't know it existed, but she essentially said something to the effect of, you know, I hear you that you wanna practice medicine, but you seem much more passionate about kind of working in the systems. Um, and turns out she was right. So, <laugh> , I panicked a lot , uh, you know, about an 11th hour kind of career change in my senior year, but it was really the best decision I made. I applied to DePaul's, you know, program, got in and now I'm here.
Speaker 3:Awesome. That's so funny 'cause I had kind of a similar experience after going through all those nasty science classes. Um, I'm, I'm really interested to learn more about, about the M S J though, because I didn't, I didn't learn about that option when I, when I panicked and chose to go to law school for the , for the jd.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah, it's a really interesting, and you know, in my understanding, a , a newer program, not a lot of, you know, at least when I went through it, people, you tell them what you're going to school for and going to law school, and they're like, what is that <laugh>? But, you know, they're structured a few different ways. I was lucky enough to serve a H L A had a panel of master's students that I was able to participate in and , and kind of hear about other programs. And mine in particular, you kind of choose your specialty ahead of time. For me, it was healthcare compliance. You go in and you're actually thrown in. You give like a , a series of entry courses that kind of get you up to speed with legal writing, things that, you know, a one L might receive right off the bat that you would be missing. And then you just get thrown in with, with three Ls , um, and two Ls in the kind of specialized courses, which was both really scary at the time. I went straight from my undergrad into, you know , um, law school. So here I am with all these three Ls, like, what am I doing? Welcome to Law <laugh>. But it was great. I loved it. I think it kind of taught me to, you know, advocate for myself despite having, you know, a different degree and a newer program. It did take me a lot to get an externship and do things like that because people are, you know, not necessarily familiar with the program. But each time I , I've been through, you know, and gotten a chance to meet a mentor or, or work, they, they always tell me, you know, we're going to consider MJ students more in the future. We didn't understand this program. Um, so that's great, great to hear. I think it's really just kind of skipping over some of the maybe more litigation pieces that you wouldn't necessarily need if you wanna work in policy or compliance. So for me, it was more efficient and I, I saved a little bit more money on school as well, because it's a shorter program. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. No, that sounds like a , an amazing option for people who, you know, maybe don't wanna have a career in the courtroom .
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Um ,
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm , I'm really glad we could , you know, put a , put a highlight on the M sj . Um , yeah , so if you could go back in time, is , is there anything you would do differently or, or any advice you would give yourself at the start of your career?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that's kind of playing off the , the question you asked about the MJ program. You know, I personally think that in undergrad I took all of my professor mom's wisdom and I was very involved. I was in every club there could be, you know, as a resident advisor. But when I got to the end and I went to law school, you know, at least, I don't know if it's true everywhere, but at least at DePaul, you know, these people have been coming up with each other for years now. They have established relationships, and I was frankly just kind of tired <laugh> . And so I just went to class and I didn't really advocate my , for myself and kind of, you know, insert myself into a lot of the resources that were available. Um, so I would say just, you know, kind of getting more actively involved, even from an advisory standpoint. I didn't end up seeing my law school advisor until I was almost finished with my program, and I was looking for another class to fill that would be, you know, more interesting. And she told me, oh, actually, master's students can also participate as externs , which is not necessarily true everywhere, but it is at DePaul, and they push that really hard. But because I didn't get myself kind of in the spaces to ask those questions more, I didn't know about it until later. And that externship actually, you know, introduced me to another mentor who got me into the job that I'm in today. So it was really valuable and I think those are experiences that I would've maybe tried to pursue a little more actively earlier.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's an excellent point. I, I think , um, law schools offer a lot of resources that a lot of students don't really take advantage of or even really know about. So that's, that's a really excellent point. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:<affirmative> , you don't know until you ask what's out there.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And you gotta go to those meetings and meet your advisors to find out <laugh>.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Okay. Well, is there anything else you'd like to, to share about your role today?
Speaker 4:You know, I, I think I would just reiterate , um, you know, my point that anytime you have a professor that you really like or you know, it , it may sound a little brown nosy, but it's really just expressing a, you know, an honest opinion that you appreciated learning from them. I think that is something that I would leverage and, and wanna relay to anyone as they're coming up through their career, no matter what, you know, educational path, because you never know what door it might open or you know, what idea it might spark that you may have never considered or even knew existed.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Those, those connections are really, really the lifeblood of anyone's career. Well , thank you so much for joining us today, Mikayla . I really enjoyed talking to you and learning more about , about your goal .
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. And it was great talking to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to a H L A speaking of health law wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about a H L A and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit American health law.org.