Inova Health Systems

Transforming learning into practice during Inova Fairfax Trauma Center visit

Heather Carroll — Fri, 09 May 2025 16:55:12 +0000

Transforming learning into practice during Inova Fairfax Trauma Center visit Heather Carroll Fri, 05/09/2025 - 12:55

Aspiring health care leaders get vivid lesson on the role of leadership in trauma care

Students in ��’s Master of Health Administration (MHA) program recently had an unforgettable opportunity to step into the heart of one of Northern Virginia’s premier emergency care facilities. MHA students from change management and strategic planning classes class visited Inova Fairfax Hospital’s state-of-the-art trauma center, gaining firsthand insight into how top-tier health care organizations operate at the intersection of clinical urgency and administrative excellence.

College of Public Health students learn at Inova Fairfax Hospital
Photo by Michelle Thompson/College of Public Health

This visit was much more than a tour—it was a vivid demonstration of how George Mason’s MHA program prepares future leaders for complex, high-stakes environments. The experience underscored three key themes: the transformative education George Mason provides, the powerful partnership with Inova Health System, and the inspiring potential of George Mason’s future health care leaders.

Translating classroom learning to real-world practice

For Vinay Bhakthan, who will graduate in spring 2026 from the Bachelor’s to Accelerated Master’s program, the visit was eye-opening. “From coordinating nurse staffing levels and ensuring patient bed availability, to triaging critical cases to trauma rooms and overseeing room turnover after discharges, all while making sure the emergency department is following all regulations and organization policies is an immense task. Seeing these things in person gave me a clear perspective about the realities of the job,” said Bhakthan.

Similarly, Pratyusha Satpathy, who will graduate in December 2026, found herself connecting academic concepts to operational excellence. “This visit brought many classroom concepts to life,” she said. “It also reminded me how essential leadership is in shaping an environment where clinicians can focus on patients while everything else runs smoothly in the background. Everything was thoughtfully planned out—from how easily accessible supplies were, to how rooms could transition into emergency pods instantly with oxygen and suction systems already in place. It really showed how administrators are not only managing systems but enabling life-saving care through intentional design and coordination.”

For Taveion Mickens, the visit bridged his growing academic knowledge with the emotional reality of health care leadership. Mickens, a United States Marine, will graduate from the Bachelor’s to Accelerated Master’s program in December 2026. “Seeing administrators lead with both precision and empathy reinforced how indispensable they are in creating an environment where health care professionals can thrive and patients can receive timely, quality care. Emergencies don’t follow a script leaders must be able to pivot quickly and make informed decisions under pressure. Communication becomes a lifeline, not just between staff, but also with patients and families who may be in crisis. Most importantly, empathy must guide every decision. When administrators lead with compassion, they uplift both their teams and the patients they serve,” said Mickens.

A strong partnership with Inova Health System

MHA students tour Inova Fairfax's trauma center
Photo by Michelle Thompson/College of Public Health

The tour also spotlights George Mason’s longstanding relationship with Inova. Through access to real-world settings like Inova Fairfax’s trauma center, George Mason students experience how leading health care organizations integrate systems thinking, workforce management, quality assurance, and emergency preparedness into seamless patient care.

“As a former trauma nurse, I know the value of exposing graduate students to the world of health care beyond the walls of a classroom and textbooks. My hope is that students who seek an MHA degree will become leaders that are consistently engaged with clinicians and staff as patient care partners, rather than detached bystanders. There is simply no substitute for being present,” said Professor Brenda Helen Sheingold, PhD, RN, FNAP said division director of Health Administration Programs and an associate professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy.

The Inova trauma center’s forward-thinking infrastructure—emergency pods, integrated technology systems, and strategically organized resources—left a lasting impression on the students. It demonstrated how thoughtful administrative planning directly enhances clinical outcomes and staff resilience, particularly in high-pressure emergency environments.

Inspiring the next generation of health care leaders

Each of the three students came away with renewed passion and clarity for their future careers. Bhakthan, who is motivated by the desire to solve health care’s systemic challenges, affirmed that the visit “strengthened [his] commitment to being part of the solutions” in health care administration.

Satpathy, who blends a clinical background as a doctor with administrative aspirations, left the visit feeling more empowered: “As someone who trained in medicine before coming to the U.S... I want to build environments that make health care safer, smoother, and more responsive.”

For Mickens, whose goal is to lead change in underserved communities, the experience provided both affirmation and inspiration. “This visit didn’t just confirm my career goals; it gave them new direction and deeper purpose,” he said.

Thanks to the immersive experiences provided through the College of Public Health’s MHA program—and strong partners like Inova Health System—students are graduating ready to lead the future of health care, not just react to it. For these aspiring health care leaders, the trauma center visit wasn’t just an assignment. It was a vivid reminder of the critical role administrators play in ensuring every life-saving second counts.

From left, MHA students Vinay Bhakthan, Pratyusha Satpathy, Taveion Mickens

Learn More About Our Health Administrations Programs

Students Experience the Pitt—A Real-World Trauma Center

For fans of the hit medical drama The Pitt on Max, the high-stakes, fast-paced world of trauma care is both riveting and emotionally charged. But for three �� Master of Health Administration (MHA) students, a recent visit to Inova Fairfax Hospital’s Trauma Center offered a firsthand look at the real-life complexities behind the scenes—where administrators play a crucial role in orchestrating life-saving care.

Inova Fairfax Hospital houses Northern Virginia’s only Level 1 Trauma Center, a designation it has held since 1983. This elite status signifies the hospital's ability to provide the highest level of surgical care to trauma patients, with a multidisciplinary team available 24/7. The center treats a wide range of critical injuries, from car crashes and falls to industrial incidents and acts of violence.

For MHA students Vinay Bhakthan, Pratyusha Satpathy, and Taveion Mickens, the visit to Inova's Trauma Center was more than an educational tour—it was a transformative experience that bridged classroom learning with real-world application.

Topics

MHA

Department of Health Administration and Policy

Inova Health Systems

Public Health Careers

HAP Students

Students

In the George

George Mason becomes new home for 400,000 biological specimens from Inova Health Systems

Mary Cunningham — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:07:11 +0000

George Mason becomes new home for 400,000 biological specimens from Inova Health Systems Mary Cunningham Tue, 07/16/2024 - 20:07

��’s College of Public Health is the new home of 400,000 biological specimens through a partnership with Inova Health Systems. This repository of specimens, called a biobank, is an extensive collection of obstetrical and perinatal samples, along with follow-up health information, providing a rare and invaluable asset in public health and in the education of our future health, science, and technology care workforce.

“The biorepository creates opportunities for Mason to expand its collaborations with Inova, biotechnology partners, and other universities in Virginia, as well as unique educational opportunities,” said Melissa Perry, dean of the college.

Larry Maxwell, president of the Women’s Service Line at Inova Health System, said, “The investment by Inova Health System as well as additional support from the Fairfax County Government have created an unprecedented resource of placenta as well as blood specimens from mother, father, and baby [trios] corresponding to over 4,000 families. These biospecimens and corresponding data continue to support scientific research to better understand the obstetrical diseases that contribute to rising rates of maternal morbidity and mortality locally, regionally, and nationally.”

A range of specimens (e.g., saliva, urine, and blood) were collected with consent from an Inova cohort study that followed more than 4,000 women, their partners, and their children from pregnancy into early childhood to examine maternal health, pregnancy outcomes, and children’s growth and development.

Biobank program leads Carolyn Drews-Botsch and Michael S. Bloom. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

“The transfer of the biobank from Inova Health System to the College of Public Health serves as a testament to our strong public–private partnership, and underscores George Mason’s dedication to advancing health in pregnancy and early childhood,” said Alison Cuellar, College of Public Health associate dean for research. The biobank is housed at the university’s Science and Technology �� in Manassas, Virginia.

The biobank offers an unprecedented opportunity for George Mason researchers to engage with and involve Virginia’s undergraduate and graduate students in health and public health science, to expand Virginia’s health, science, and technology workforce pipeline and enhance its diversity.

“The availability of such comprehensive and diverse datasets within a single biobank is rare, making it an attractive asset for collaboration and groundbreaking research endeavors,” said Michael S. Bloom, program lead of the College of Public Health Biobank and George Mason professor.

Space at the SciTech �� for the biobank was renovated to hold the 11 tanks (called dewars) and freezers full of specimens. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Bloom and co-lead Carolyn Drews-Botsch started the work for the biobank transfer in 2021. Inova chose Bloom and Drews-Botsch after extensive vetting of their prior research experience, including involvement in large cohort studies, such as those from which these specimens are drawn. Space at the SciTech �� for the biobank was renovated to hold the 11 tanks (called dewars) and freezers full of specimens. The containers are kept between -80 degrees C and -190 degrees C to maintain specimen integrity during long-term storage.

“These specimens will be vital for public health researchers who are looking to identify associations and factors that support healthy pregnancy and child health and ultimately benefit the public’s health,” said Drews-Botsch, a professor in the College of Public Health.

The professors expect the biobank to become a leading resource for collaborative projects once a research database is developed, with other researchers analyzing the data to answer important public health questions.

“By actively fostering these partnerships, George Mason can position itself as a leader in research around maternal health and early childhood and contribute to the advancement of public health on a larger scale,” Perry said.

Uncover more research at the College of Public Health

In This Story

Michael S. Bloom, PhD, MS, FACE

Carolyn Drews-Botsch, PhD, MPH

Alison Evans Cuellar, PhD, MBA

Melissa J. Perry, Sc.D., MHS, MBA

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Maternal Child Health

Science and Technology ��

New noninvasive tests may help pediatric heart recipients

Nathan Kahl — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:08:18 +0000

New noninvasive tests may help pediatric heart recipients Nathan Kahl Thu, 02/15/2024 - 10:08

Each year, approximately 500 children in the U.S. undergo heart transplantation. These children face considerable stress.

Undergoing a biopsy—an invasive procedure using a catheter to remove a piece of the transplanted heart to test it—is just one way such patients are poked and prodded. Cardiac biopsies are a necessary evil, serving as the primary way doctors detect if a heart is likely to be rejected. But now �� and the Inova Health System are teaming up to develop ways to make that determination with noninvasive techniques.

Jason Goldberg. Photo provided

“On average, children pediatric heart transplant patients undergo approximately 10 biopsies within the first year of transplant…and more if they have rejection,” said Jason Goldberg, MD, MS, a pediatric cardiologist and research fellow at Mason. “That's a big deal, especially since taking a child to the hospital is no small thing. They have to go under anesthesia, they have to have needles stuck in them. It's quite traumatic, and diagnosing rejection in a noninvasive manner may help start treatment before the patient is sick and not feeling well.”

Cardiologist Palak Shah, MD, an adult heart-transplant specialist who serves as Goldberg’s research mentor at Inova, has worked with colleagues both at Inova and Mason to evaluate the potential of microRNA (miR) to provide clues on whether heart transplant recipients are at risk for rejection. miR are small, noncoding RNA molecules that impact the regulation of gene-expression.

Shah and his team published a paper in 2022 that was cause for optimism. The researchers found that “miRs are promising genomic biomarkers in cardiovascular medicine, have the potential ability to detect heart transplant rejection, and may provide mechanistic insights into molecular pathways modulated during rejection.”

“MicroRNA is a type of transcription factor, which is a protein that turns specific genes ‘on’ or ‘off’ by binding to nearby DNA,” explained Goldberg. “And it's encoded to a certain degree to do what the body needs, so when you measure the microRNA, you can get a sense of what the body is doing—essentially it's a molecular biomarker. What Palak and others found is that there are microRNA signatures correlating with heart transplant rejection.”

Goldberg is now using the technique to test children who have received new hearts. He and his colleagues at Mason and Inova received a grant from the Enduring Hearts Foundation, which includes collaboration with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who have bio-banked blood samples taken at the time of biopsy. The biomarkers are validated by looking simultaneously at the microRNA taken at the same time as a rejection or nonrejection biopsy.

Testing microRNA allows doctors to determine the likelihood of a successful heart transplantation

The new pediatric developments are being supported by a partnership between Inova and the Mason Statistics Collaboration Core (SCC), which is providing the mircoRNA analysis. This and other collaborative projects require machine learning and other advanced statistical techniques utilized by Mason faculty and graduate students.

Goldberg said that the collaboration is mutually beneficial. “Mason has great research and science but no medical school, whereas Inova has great medicine but lacks significant biomedical academic partnership," said Goldberg. "With the two organizations working together it creates a lot of runway for research.”

Goldberg is one the first members of a postdoc program for Inova clinician-scientists interested in developing skills in statistics and data science. “I'm a pediatric heart transplant physician and I've been taking care of patients for nearly 15 years,” he said. “But I was at a point in my career where I really caught the research bug, and it hasn’t gone away."

Palak, Goldberg's mentor, has ongoing collaborations with Jiayang Sun, chair of Mason's Department of Statistics, and Carolyn Drews-Botsch, chair of the Department of Global and Community Health in Mason's College of Public Health. Sun is the Mason PI and Drews-Botsch is the Co-PI for this special joint postdoc program with Inova Health System.

“This pioneering program between Mason and Inova uniquely trains the next generation of medical research scientists in collaborative research and some essentials in data science, statistics, or epidemiology to address the challenges of the AI and information revolution," said Sun. The program features dedicated mentors from Mason in the fields of statistics, epidemiology, and global health, along with top physicians and researchers at Inova.

Goldberg is enthused about the new development, and most importantly, the increased longevity it may bring to young patients with critical heart disease. “When I was in my cardiology fellowship, we thought that the big change in heart transplantation would be that we wouldn't have to do it anymore, that there would be stem cells and other fancy machines that wouldn't require the use of donor organs. But time and time again, nothing has really worked to replace heart transplantation.

“It has become clear that the next frontier for our patients includes personalized medicine where molecular biomarkers and therapies can evaluate ongoing pathology and define specific treatments before significant illness develops. I am proud to be part of this work at Mason and Inova.”