{"id":4745,"date":"2025-01-06T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=4745"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:06","slug":"anchors-aweigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2025\/01\/anchors-aweigh\/","title":{"rendered":"Anchors Aweigh"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lessons Keldrick Averhart, M.H.A. \u201923 learned at Seton Hall are enhancing his work as a U.S. Navy corpsman in locations around the globe. <\/em><\/p>\n

In 2021, a devastating earthquake shook Haiti, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring more than 12,000 others. Navy corpsman Keldrick Averhart was sent there as part of a U.S. military deployment to help the disaster relief effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care is already hard enough, especially post-COVID, when we have so many logistical issues,\u201d Averhart says. \u201cBut now try to do that in Haiti, which is a couple thousand miles away. It\u2019s hard to get resources there on time, in the place they need to be, across three to four different platforms to ship across three different branches of military services. During the Joint Task Force Haiti mission, I knew I wanted to contribute more to my team and the community by providing innovative solutions to unique problems. The only way I knew how to do that was to expand my education.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Averhart, who completed Seton Hall\u2019s Master of Healthcare Administration (M.H.A.) degree online while deployed as a behavioral health tech in the U.S. Navy, says he\u2019s grateful for courses like Emergency Management for Health Professionals, which have prepared him for complex situations.<\/p>\n

When a ship isn\u2019t capable of caring for a particular patient, for example, a decision must be made. \u201cDo we send them to Puerto Rico? Do we send them to America?\u201d Averhart says. \u201cAnd if one of our Marines or sailors gets injured while taking care of people, where do we send them? We have contingency plan on top of contingency plan on top of contingency plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the time Averhart was small, he was fascinated with hospitals \u2014 the doctors, nurses, people who cleaned. \u201cI look at it like a human body,\u201d he says. \u201cThat organization grows, develops and helps improve the community. I always wanted to be part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Averhart\u2019s dual interest in patient care and the business side of healing made healthcare administration a natural fit when thinking about the next steps for his career; he was drawn to what Seton Hall\u2019s M.H.A. program offered. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a cookie-cutter [option] where I could just do the bare minimum, get my degree and say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m done,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d have to go through a rigorous program to get my degree.\u201d And its hybrid blend of in-person and online learning accommodated his Navy career.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeton Hall\u2019s M.H.A. program appeals to healthcare professionals like\u202fKeldrick\u202fwho value its blend of leadership training and real-world applications,\u201d says Anne M. Hewitt, professor emerita. She noted that Seton Hall has one of only a handful of accredited M.H.A. programs in the U.S. to offer a course on emergency management, a critical subject for administrators and C-level executives across the healthcare landscape.<\/p>\n

To successfully balance his studies and military life, Averhart planned a month ahead, setting priorities with his Navy chain of command and Seton Hall professors. His job entailed both administrative work and visiting ships or clinics to see patients with mental health diagnoses ranging from anxiety and chronic depression to post-traumatic stress disorder. During an especially hectic week, he might also swoop in to help at surgical sites, seeing patients with gunshot wounds, mangled limbs, broken legs. \u201cI\u2019m out there mending those inside of a surgery unit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Since he began the M.H.A. program in fall 2020, Averhart has had postings in Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany. \u201cI finished my degree while stationed in Guam,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Averhart completed his degree in August 2023 and received his diploma in May. He hopes to become a commissioned Navy healthcare administration officer, and while in Guam he\u2019d like to teach healthcare administration as a professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeldrick epitomizes Seton Hall\u2019s tradition of servant leadership,\u201d says Nalin Johri, director
\nof the M.H.A. program. \u201cHis professionalism and sense of caring will help propel his future career as a healthcare leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristen Licciardi is a senior manager of marketing and communications at Seton Hall. Kimberly Olson is a freelance writer based in New York City. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lessons Keldrick Averhart, M.H.A. \u201923 learned at Seton Hall are enhancing his work as a U.S. Navy corpsman in locations around the globe. In 2021, a devastating earthquake shook Haiti, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring more than 12,000 others. Navy corpsman Keldrick Averhart was sent there as part of a U.S. military…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingAnchors Aweigh<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5749,"featured_media":4746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,259,317],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-articles-2020-2024","category-profile","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5749"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4745"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4819,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745\/revisions\/4819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}