|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Soldiering OnBaylor Army grad mentors the next generation
By Judy Prather
When Dr. Nicholas Coppola retired from the U.S. Army last June, he was
leaving a job he loved. A 1997 graduate of Baylor's Army graduate
program in health administration in San Antonio, Coppola went on to
earn the PhD from the Medical College of Virginia in 2003 before
returning to proudly direct Baylor's San Antonio graduate program for
five years.
 But
Coppola didn't just hang up his uniform and walk away forgotten.
Shortly after retiring, he learned that he had been chosen to receive
both the 2008 Army Medical Service Corps (MSC) Mentor of the Year Award
and the 2008 Educator of the Year Award.
While both honors are meaningful, he says he was especially humbled at
receiving the mentorship award. Coppola was selected by junior officers
all over the military system as the senior officer who demonstrated
"exceptional, measurable, and visible mentorship recognizable to all
members of the MSC regardless of rank or duty description" and
"displayed altruistic and selfless service to MSC officers worldwide."
He says, "I got notice of the award about a week or so after I
officially retired. After twenty-six years, I was going through some
very typical self-analysis. Did I do everything I could do to assure
that the next generation is prepared? I guess it's sort of like fathers
sending children off to college--did I do enough?"
Apparently, he and his colleagues did, and continue to do, more than
enough. The Baylor MHA degree program has been consistently recognized
as a top-twenty program in the country since U.S. News & World Report began ranking healthcare administration graduate programs in the mid-1990s.
Coppola's pride in the program and in the students is obvious. "There
is no other program like this in the country," he says. "We do in two
years what the rest of the country does in three." After a year of
didactics and another year of residency, graduates are returned to an
operational military environment.
Graduates of the program are, he says, high-quality general officers
and sought-after healthcare professionals who will take positions as
middle management or early senior hospital leadership in military
healthcare systems. Some will be chiefs of clinical support divisions
or deputy hospital administrators.
"Studying at Baylor was life-transforming for me personally," Coppola
says. "It opened up doors that would have not otherwise been accessible
and provided a sound education and a very sound network of other Baylor
grads that allowed me to advance in my career."
He has now moved to Lubbock with his wife, Susannah, and three
children, where he is program director and an associate professor with
the Master of Science in Clinical Practice Management program of the
Texas Tech University Health Science Center.
But thanks to dedicated mentors like Coppola, other graduates from
Baylor's MHA program will be equally well-equipped. "As I looked at my
goals and visions and objectives," he says, "I was always focused on
preparing the next generation of soldiers to assume leadership in
military healthcare."
While the program is highly ranked, the rankings aren't as important to
him as the results. "Everybody wants a Baylor grad to work for them in
the military health systems," he says. "We only had so many students to
go around, and invariably senior officers would be asking for more
Baylor residents and graduates than we had to give. Any time a new
project or new task or requirement for new analysis comes down the
pipeline, senior officers will look first for a new Baylor grad to do
that--absolutely hands down."
Apparently, Nicholas Coppola had a lot to do with that.
|
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
