SIPA Scores Breakthrough in
Healthcare Management Challenge

For the first time in the competition's history, an all-SIPA student team has won first place in the Healthcare Delivery and Management Case Challenge at the Mailman School of Public Health.

The annual competition involved students from SIPA, Mailman, Columbia Business School and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. The team of five SIPA students were pronounced the winners on October 8.

The winning team members, pictured from left to right, are Elena Resk (MIA '12), Maria Soledad Guilera (MIA '12), Pau Suris (MIA '12), and Alexis Smith (MIA '12). They are shown with John Winkleman, senior judge of the competition.

Not pictured are team captain Vladimir Olarte (MPA '12) and team advisor Amireh Horriyat (MIA '11), a SIPA teaching assistant.

In the competition, teams presented proposals for how to manage a biopharmaceutical company facing a potential merger or acquisition by another company. The judges included pharmaceutical industry consultants and Mailman faculty members.

Participants said that the competition was an enjoyable and valuable learning experience. "After we made the presentation, the judges asked us questions that made us rethink our presentation," Guilera says. "There was a lot of feedback that really makes you think how you are going to perform in a real situation."

Notably, the winning team members are all international students; English is not their first language. Guilera says that the competition gave her more confidence in her presentation skills. "We actually could communicate our strategies in a persuasive way," she says.

The competition was sponsored by the Columbia Alliance for Healthcare Management, a partnership of Mailman, Columbia Business School and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Paul W. Thurman, executive director of the alliance, teaches at Mailman and SIPA. "This was a year of 'firsts' for the competition," said Thurman. "An exclusively SIPA team won for the first time, another team was represented by four schools and four graduate degree programs, and we had the biggest cash award in the history of the event - more than $3,000." It was also the first time two individual entrants participated - from SIPA and Physicians & Surgeons.

Tim Shenk, 10/13/2010

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