ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Making the Jump from Academia to Management Consulting: A Discussion with Dr. Karolina Bidzinski
By Carmen Li
A
re you considering healthcare management consulting as a career path but uncertain about making the switch? IMS Magazine interviewed Dr. Karolina Bidzinski, a Management Consultant in the Healthcare Solutions, Operations practice at KPMG Canada, to provide advice on opportunities to explore the world of management consulting as a graduate student. Healthcare management consulting is the process of guiding healthcare organizations to make business-savvy decisions and maintaining the welfare of staff and patients. Healthcare consultants are experts in the industry—they have in-depth knowledge of healthcare laws, regulations, and policies to help medical organizations and hospitals run efficiently and effectively. For example, they may work with clients to align their clinical operating model to their strategic and financial objectives. Remarkable, right? However, as an IMS student with an interest in pursuing consulting after their MSc. or Ph.D., how do you get started? How do you make the leap from working in an academic laboratory to brainstorming strategies to streamline the operations of a healthcare organization?
34 | IMS MAGAZINE SPRING 2022 PATIENT ENGAGEMENT
For IMS alumni, Dr. Karolina Bidzinski, the switch from academia to consulting took a great deal of persistence and networking. It also took active participation in skill-building opportunities hosted by the Graduate Management Consulting Association (GMCA) at the University of Toronto. As Dr. Bidzinski may tell her own mentees, making this kind of career switch is possible for anyone; it just takes strategy and determination. To give background, Dr. Bidzinski describes her experiences during her graduate studies and initial interest in industry careers. To start, she points out that the majority of her M.Sc. and Ph.D. research is published under her maiden name Kozak. Dr. Bidzinski has a H.B.Sc. with a Specilization in Biology from the University of Western Ontario. She then came to Toronto to complete both her M.Sc. and Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Tony P. George at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). For her M.Sc., Dr. Bidzinski conducted clinical research investigating the effects of pharmacotherapy on cognitive functioning in a subset of schizophrenia patients. Her following Ph.D. project assessed the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on cannabis use and cognitive outcomes in schizophrenia patients with a cannabis use disorder. During
the start of her Ph.D., Dr. Bidzinski started exploring potential careers. “As rewarding as executing clinical trials and publishing research is and observing the positive outcomes amongst patients that surface with some of the research that you complete,” but there was something missing. She explained, “I wanted to pursue a career with a more immediate impact. I came across a U of T student group, the GMCA. They are an organization that aims to bridge the gap between academia and consulting.” By engaging in activities presented by GMCA, Dr. Bidzinski noted that she had the opportunity to figure out whether or not consulting was for her and even which sector of consulting she was most interested in pursuing. She recalls attending their networking events, case competitions, and completing GMCA’s business fundamentals course, a “mini-MBA” (so to speak). Through her involvement in so many different activities with the GMCA, Dr. Bidzinski realized her passion for consultant work. Combined with her six and a half years of clinical research experiences, she knew healthcare management consulting was the perfect niche. However, how would another IMS student know if consulting is right for them? What if you are unsure about what sector you want to pursue, such as finance or healthcare? Graphic design by Mimi Guo
