Public health training launches former student’s career in service and leadership

Growing up in Laredo, Texas, Karina Lopez ‘20 ’23 knew she wanted to pursue a profession dedicated to serving others. Now, after earning two degrees from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, she’s on the fast track to fulfilling her wish in a promising health administration career.

Lopez—who earned a bachelor’s degree in public health with a minor in occupational safety and health, followed by a Master of Health Administration (MHA) degree—now works as an assistant administrator for DeTar Healthcare System in Victoria, Texas. The system provides medical services to numerous South Texas rural communities as well as outlying markets around Victoria.

The Aggie is now putting her public health training to use in several of the system’s strategic areas.

“When the pandemic happened, I don’t think people understood what public health was,” Lopez said. “We learned that public health involves working together as a community to try to figure out, ‘What are the next steps? What are you currently doing? What have you done in the past to make the future better.’”

Finding her path

Lopez credits her mother, who is a teacher, and her father, who is a financial advisor, as her role models for having a career serving others.

“Thanks to them, I have always had the mindset of helping people. When I was growing up, I would tell them that on certain days of the week I wanted to be a teacher helping students, a vet helping animals, or a doctor helping people,” she said.

After initially considering all those options, Lopez eventually narrowed her focus to health care. Participating in a high school nursing program that placed students in nursing homes to help at the bedside helped Lopez clarify that she was more interested in a different side of health care.

At the same time, Lopez was considering college options, thanks to Texas Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP), which focuses on college awareness and readiness.

“We started visiting colleges as part of GEAR UP,” she said. “As soon as I visited Texas A&M in the seventh grade, I realized, ‘This is home. This is where I want to go.’”

However, she had an unexpected detour when she was initially admitted as part of the Blinn Team, an academic partnership between Texas A&M and Blinn College. After her initial disappointment, Lopez realized the many upsides.

“While being a member of the Blinn Team, I could still live in the dorms and be a student at Texas A&M,” she said. “They had counselors who were able to help you easily navigate which classes to take, so I could choose whether to take a certain course at Texas A&M or Blinn.”

A community perspective to health

Lopez made a snap decision to major in public health.

“As a new student applying for college, I didn’t really know what major I was going to apply for,” she said. “I just chose something with the word ‘health’ in it. But after taking classes, I fell in love with the School of Public Health.”

She quickly found that she liked public health’s holistic approach, which takes a community perspective.

“Public health is the idea of looking at issues from a community perspective to help a group of people,” she said. “Whether it’s making your community park an easier place to walk to promote exercise or teaching the community about the dangers of smoking, it’s all public health.”

Lopez also opted to earn a minor in occupational safety in health.

“I thought the topic was interesting and wanted to know more about Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the way you can protect your health,” she said. “We talked about the proper ways to sit at your desk, why you should stand at certain times of the day, and how to have the proper keyboard and chair to protect your posture. All of that really does help in the long run.”

Before she completed her undergraduate degree, Lopez took the opportunity to shadow Laredo’s Gateway Community Health Systems CEO Elmo Lopez Jr., who is Lopez’s uncle. This experience helped her learn more about health administration.

By taking summer classes, she graduated a semester early with her bachelor’s degree and enrolled in the school’s MHA program, which she said gave her focus.

“The master’s program was just so helpful in many ways,” she said. “It provided us with opportunities to listen to speakers, learn about the different career opportunities within health care administration, and prepared us for what this career was going to be like.”

In 2021, Lopez was encouraged by Jack Buckley, Jr., the interim program director of the MHA program, to apply for a practicum at Laredo Medical Center.

“In the first week of my internship, I was still figuring out what exactly I wanted to do. I was trying to figure out whether my focus would be in hospital operations, consulting or data analytics,” she said. “I absolutely fell in love with hospital administration, and I owe a big thank you to my mentor, Jorge Leal ’06 ’08, who is the CEO of the hospital, because he really showed me what that field entailed.”

Opening doors

These experiences prepared Lopez for her role with DeTar Healthcare System, which employs 1,032 staff members and 189 active medical staff physicians and engages more than 50 volunteers within two campuses. Within her first six months she was given oversight of the environmental services and nutrition services departments. Now promoted to the role of assistant administrator, Lopez has been given additional responsibilities that include oversight of respiratory services, assisting in strategic hospital operations, and developing the Fun Committee to foster a welcoming organizational culture and employee engagement.

While she hopes to eventually earn a doctorate, Lopez is currently expanding her opportunities by participating in a CEO leadership development program for new health care administration professionals, which she learned about during her practicum. The program, which is provided through Community Health Systems (CHS), offers leadership support and networking for a cohort of early-career health care administrators who work throughout CHS’s 72 hospitals located across 14 states.

While she appreciates the individuals in that leadership cohort, Lopez continues to experience the power and reach of the Aggie Network. During a recent MHA student and alumni dinner during the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Congress on Healthcare Leadership in Houston, Lopez ran into a current student who remembered her from campus.

“I gave her my card, and I said, ‘You know, not everyone may be able to give you a job at this time, but we all know someone in different cities and different states who might have a job,” Lopez recounted. “That just goes to show the power of the A&M connection.”