Lisa Griffin Vincent - Health Policy and Management

Lisa Griffin Vincent acknowledges that in many ways her background - in nursing, kinesiology, and clinical research - seemed to be leading her down a path toward epidemiology. But as she became increasingly aware of the importance of understanding the health care system and its relationship with clinical trials and treatments, Vincent switched her focus and became a PhD candidate in Health Services Research, Policy and Administration.

In August 2003, she became senior director of clinical research at Minneapolis-based Medtronic Neurological. Now she takes the perspectives she gained in the Division of Health Policy and Management into the workplace, directing the company's clinical research from Phase II human trials through regulatory approval and into post-marketing studies on health outcomes and economics.

Thinking about the economics of treatment and care early on is crucial, says Vincent, 42. And to do that, it's essential to understand how the health care system works, from access to care to insurance to the flow of referrals.

"HPM helped me on a methodological and theoretical level to think about how a treatment is used in the real world," says Vincent, who finished her dissertation in January 2003. "If you have the perfect treatment but it's never utilized, then you've lost your mission."