I am Kaitlyn Z Varriale, a rising sophomore majoring in Health Care Policy and minoring in Health Equity at Cornell University. I am a tireless hardworking dedicated to achieving just, affordable, and high-quality health care for all in America. My passion for advancing health care policy began as a high school sophomore: Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, an insurance denial of my hospitalization* and a struggle to get my vital treatments opened my eyes early on in life to the failings in the American healthcare system and the more severe, incessant struggles of other patients. Emerging resilient from my struggle, I dedicated my future to improving healthcare delivery, quality, and access for all. Motivated to change this horrific health injustice, I devoted myself to researching, presenting, and publishing "How Socioeconomic Status Dictates the Health Care Patients Receive in America." All the while, I graduated as Valedictorian, working with several health equity groups, earning various leadership roles, interning at a national non-profit organizing for healthcare equity, and more. For instance, I decided I wanted to shift my efforts to help transform our system actively. I became and continue to be an intern at the Lown Institute’s Right Care Alliance, specializing in healthcare system analysis and education. I have earned further responsibilities through management positions, serving on our organization’s strategy, fundraising, and orientation teams. I have learned the vital importance of deliberately orchestrating an action plan that not only benefits patients’ well-being but also remains financially feasible in the long run. While not every initial plan may be perfect, persisting and adapting to new challenges in a collaborative environment is key to success in healthcare. Furthering my devotion, as a member of Northwell Health's Northern Westchester Hospital’s President’s Junior Leadership Council, I participated in community outreach and witnessed health administration. Helping manage in-person vaccination clinics showed me the pioneering role Northwell Health plays in health systems aiding preventative population health, which proves financially beneficial in the long run. I will be continuing this community health work this summer as an intern with them this summer. I plan to utilize all I learn to actively heal our health system throughout my professional future and greater life. Now, as a current undergraduate at Cornell University, majoring in Health Care Policy and minoring in Health Equity, I continue to enrich my healthcare knowledge, management skillset, and professional development and experience, all while staying committed to helping my community. Through this effort and education, I discovered healthcare administrators' vast and inspiring potential and responsibilities in creating, leading, and managing a more equitable, efficient, & high-quality healthcare system, pioneering health justice. As a future healthcare administrator, I aspire to utilize my unique background and insight, profound passion, tireless determination, high aptitude, and natural team leadership skills to strategically lead by example for a just, high-quality American healthcare system. While healthcare administration’s function fascinates me, I also wish to comprehend its vast complexities better and reform it for greater efficacy, especially regarding health justice. This scholarship will help me accomplish this by helping fund my education. In order to best remodel our healthcare system, an educated approach is vital. Therefore, in addition to my undergraduate studies, I will also pursue a Masters in Health Administration (MHA). Unfortunately, higher education is incredibly expensive; this scholarship would be of great aid. *Fortunately, the hospital administrators made the charitable decision to absorb my bill.

Collaboration and diversity are important in advancing the healthcare and medical field as it is crucial to ensure every voice is heard. When developing improved treatments or systems, innocent lives are literally at stake. For this reason, we must ensure that every voice is heard and welcomed. Creating an environment with access but not comfort is mute, and vice versa. To ensure that our field continues to save lives for all, we must work together and evaluate all perspectives and viewpoints. Someone from a different background would have a different viewpoint, so it is not only the right thing to do to promote diversity and collaboration, but it is also necessary for advancement. I will apply collaboration and diversity in my future work daily as a health system administrator. This field is a highly collaborative profession. Constantly working in a team-based approach, hearing every aspect and opinion is vital to producing the best possible outcome in the most effective and inclusive way possible. To ensure such pure collaboration occurs, diversity is key to hearing all these various ideas. Not only does this boost our brainstorming, but it also aids in creating an inclusive space for both our employees and patients. Hospitals are where patients may be at their most vulnerable, and we must fully accommodate their needs. Past and ongoing experience in this setting stem from my work on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working group for Cornell University's Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. As the sole representative for my class and major, I take great pride and responsibility in ensuring greater equity and inclusion for our school. In this, we naturally also develop further collaboration as we instill modes and mechanisms to bolster cross-collaboration and inclusion in our school. From team-based activities fostering collaboration and inclusion to hiring and recruiting methods to enhance diversity, my work in this group will help pioneer a new way forward in higher education for greater collaboration and diversity for all going forward. For far too long, toxic competition, discrimination, prejudice, and opportunity hoarding have plagued our society. Our nation, even the world at a grander scale, is hurting. It is of the utmost importance that we, as leaders in the healthcare and medical field, pave the way for further collaboration and diversity for holistic healing. We are a community of leaders and healers, we must act like it. The "Best of Health" to All necessitates collaboration and diversity in our field.

My passion to become a healthcare administrator began when I was a sophomore in high school. Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a denial of my hospitalization and incessant struggle to get my vital treatments opened my eyes to the failings in the American healthcare system. Motivated to change this, I devoted the rest of my high school career to researching, presenting, and publishing "How Socioeconomic Status Dictates the Health Care Patients Receive in America." all while graduating as Valedictorian, volunteering with several health equity groups, earning various leadership roles, and interning at a national non-profit organizing for healthcare equity. Now, as a current undergraduate at Cornell University, majoring in Health Care Policy and minoring in Health Equity, I continue to enrich my healthcare knowledge, management skillset, and professional development and experience, all while staying committed to helping my community. I also serve on several committees to propel various aspects of Health Equity. For example, I am Cornell University's President of the Diabetes Link, advocating for and raising awareness regarding type 1 diabetes. Outside of Cornell, I have been an intern for the Right Care Alliance since my Junior year of High School. Within the greater Lown Institute, the RCA dedicates itself to organizing for health equity. I also volunteer for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to exponentially aid those with type 1 diabetes. Specifically, through these two specific organizations—the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and the Right Care Alliance (RCA)—, I am working to transform America’s healthcare system into one that prioritizes patients’ wellbeing, not profits, to ensure healthcare equity. Through JDRF, I help newly diagnosed children and their families learn how to manage their disease. I assure them that they can triumph over this burden and inform them of any critical tips to help them successfully manage their medical needs, allowing them to live a full and enjoyable life. Moreover, as an RCA intern, I organize for equitable, universal healthcare. One of my roles in this space is to spearhead seminars on the American healthcare system to mobilize for direct activist action. I am confident the American healthcare system can transform into an equitable system for all patients. I aspire to utilize my unique background, profound passion, unrelenting determination, high aptitude, and natural team leadership skills to strategically lead by example for a just, high-quality American healthcare system. Leading by example, I can actively transform my health system, and through my success, I can transform the healthcare system as others follow my triumphs.

Type 1 Diabetes Drives, Not Defines, Me With all the strength I could summon, I tried to push through, but my legs collapsed. My body smacked the court in a jarring thud; the gymnasium’s cacophony went silent. My varsity volleyball teammates stood paralyzed in motionless stares. The hours that followed were a blur. The endocrinologist’s life-altering explanation, “type 1 diabetes,” should not have shocked me. The unquenchable thirst, insatiable hunger, drastic weight loss, pounding headaches, and even an episode of urinary incontinence of the preceding weeks suddenly had relevance. The very bodily system that was supposed to protect me from disease instead turned on me. My immune system was obliterating my pancreas. With soaring blood glucose levels and diabetic ketoacidosis, the gravity of my diagnosis harshly crushed me. From my hospital bed, I spent the next week learning the vital intricacies of type 1 diabetic management. Lessons I would depend on forever. The everyday stresses of my teenage life faded; they paled in comparison to the tremendous stress I now faced, enlightening my perspective on life. However, this was only the beginning of my insight. Just three days into my weeklong hospital stay, my family received even more unbelievable news: My insurance company was refusing to cover my $53,000 hospital bill with the dumbfounding explanation that my care was medically unnecessary. This cost would render my family financially destitute. Not only was I burdened with a life-long medical challenge, but also the fear of not being able to afford the medical care I needed to survive. Although I was fortunate that the hospital eventually graciously absorbed my bill, through my experience, it became clear to me that the American healthcare system is seriously flawed and starkly inequitable. For other less fortunate individuals whose hospitals do not have the financial means to absorb their bill, they must face a life-threatening diagnosis while combating severe financial debt and go without vital care because their healthcare system does not protect them. The challenges accompanying my diagnosis have driven me to uncover the failings of the American healthcare system. My Humanities Research Honors course provided me with the avenue to research this calamity. Through my research, I interviewed various professionals and collaborated with several non-profit organizations. I completed and published my research paper and symposium presentation: How Socioeconomic Status Dictates the Health Care Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Receive in America. I want to dedicate my life to this field of study and activist work. Through two specific organizations—the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and the Right Care Alliance (RCA)—, I am working to transform America’s healthcare system into one that prioritizes patients’ wellbeing, not profits, to ensure healthcare equity. Through JDRF, I help newly diagnosed children and their families learn how to manage their disease. I assure them that they can triumph over this burden and inform them of any critical tips to help them successfully manage their medical needs, allowing them to live a full and enjoyable life. Moreover, as an RCA intern, I organize for equitable, universal healthcare. One of my roles in this space is to spearhead seminars on the American healthcare system to mobilize for direct activist action. I am confident the American healthcare system can transform into an equitable system for all patients. Type 1 diabetes changed my life, but it has empowered me. Through my unrelenting medical condition, I found my life’s ambition: to ensure a working, equitable healthcare system for everyone living in America. Type 1 diabetes drives, not defines, me.

Type 1 Diabetes Drives, Not Defines, Me With all the strength I could summon, I tried to push through, but my legs collapsed. My body smacked the court in a jarring thud; the gymnasium’s cacophony went silent. My varsity volleyball teammates stood paralyzed in motionless stares. The hours that followed were a blur. The endocrinologist’s life-altering explanation, “type 1 diabetes,” should not have shocked me. The unquenchable thirst, insatiable hunger, drastic weight loss, pounding headaches, and even an episode of urinary incontinence of the preceding weeks suddenly had relevance. The very bodily system that was supposed to protect me from disease instead turned on me. My immune system was obliterating my pancreas. With soaring blood glucose levels and diabetic ketoacidosis, the gravity of my diagnosis harshly crushed me. From my hospital bed, I spent the next week learning the vital intricacies of type 1 diabetic management. Lessons I would depend on forever. The everyday stresses of my teenage life faded; they paled in comparison to the tremendous stress I now faced, enlightening my perspective on life. However, this was only the beginning of my insight. Just three days into my weeklong hospital stay, my family received even more unbelievable news: My insurance company was refusing to cover my $53,000 hospital bill with the dumbfounding explanation that my care was medically unnecessary. This cost would render my family financially destitute. Not only was I burdened with a life-long medical challenge, but also the fear of not being able to afford the medical care I needed to survive. Although I was fortunate that the hospital eventually graciously absorbed my bill, through my experience, it became clear to me that the American healthcare system is seriously flawed and starkly inequitable. For other less fortunate individuals whose hospitals do not have the financial means to absorb their bill, they must face a life-threatening diagnosis while combating severe financial debt and go without vital care because their healthcare system does not protect them. The challenges accompanying my diagnosis have driven me to uncover the failings of the American healthcare system. My Humanities Research Honors course provided me with the avenue to research this calamity. Through my research, I interviewed various professionals and collaborated with several non-profit organizations. I completed and published my research paper and symposium presentation: How Socioeconomic Status Dictates the Health Care Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Receive in America. I want to dedicate my life to this field of study and activist work. Through two specific organizations—the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and the Right Care Alliance (RCA)—, I am working to transform America’s healthcare system into one that prioritizes patients’ wellbeing, not profits, to ensure healthcare equity. Through JDRF, I help newly diagnosed children and their families learn how to manage their disease. I assure them that they can triumph over this burden and inform them of any critical tips to help them successfully manage their medical needs, allowing them to live a full and enjoyable life. Moreover, as an RCA intern, I organize for equitable, universal healthcare. One of my roles in this space is to spearhead seminars on the American healthcare system to mobilize for direct activist action. I am confident the American healthcare system can transform into an equitable system for all patients. Type 1 diabetes changed my life, but it has empowered me. Through my unrelenting medical condition, I found my life’s ambition: to ensure a working, equitable healthcare system for everyone living in America. Type 1 diabetes drives, not defines, me.