Alumni Profile: Amanda Harris

Class of 2015

Facility Engagement Lead

Doctors of BC

At Doctors of BC, my role involves engaging with facility-based physicians and Health Authority leaders. Our goal is to achieve quality patient care through engagement, collaboration, and physician leadership.

Prior to working at Doctors of BC, I was a Health Promotion Coordinator at the Canadian Cancer Society. I was working on my MHA at UBC and was looking ahead to future career possibilities without a specific role or organization in mind. During my MHA, I was also matched with a mentor through the Emerging Health Leaders network. She really helped me to figure out where my next career move might be and to find opportunities that would allow me to focus on where my strengths were best applied.

The opportunity to work at Doctors of BC came just as I had graduated from the MHA. Incidentally, one of the members of the hiring committee was a UBC MHA alumni and we quickly connected over the program and the experience of doing the MHA. It’s definitely an asset to have a degree that is recognized and that links me to alumni from all aspects of health care.

This reinforced how the MHA was the right decision for me. I wanted a masters that wasn’t what everyone had and the MHA appealed to me because it’s relatively unique in Canada. When I researched it further, I also was drawn to the partnership between the Faculty of Medicine and Sauder. In the program, I learned about budgeting and finance, as well as strategies in human resources, change management and organizational behavior.  I’ve found that I’m applying learnings from many of the MHA courses to my day to day work of engaging with facility-based physicians across BC.  The initiative is the first of its kind in Canada, so MHA courses that focused on strategic management, program planning, and evaluation have been instrumental in this work that our team is building from the ground up.

One other deciding factor for me was the face-to-face class time while still being able to work full-time. I knew it would be hectic but studying online just wasn’t right for me. Not only did I feel part of a community of students during my degree but I’ve formed some very close friendships that I know will last a lifetime.

Read more stories about our alumni and where the MHA can take you