Crowning achievements: Inside this student's journey from dentist to healthcare consultant

Hetal Patel's (MBA ’25) path to healthcare leadership began in India, where she graduated as a dentist in 2015. After practicing there for five years, she wanted a change and decided to move to Canada to do the same work. “I came here thinking I would do my licensing exams and resume my career as a dentist,” she recalled. But two weeks after she moved, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. As a result, the process of re-licensing for her Canadian credentials slowed to a crawl. “With the lockdown, everything changed. I had to reassess what I really wanted to do.”

Patel says she had always been interested in management and had some experience in it. When practicing dentistry, she’d also acted as a dental operations manager in a private hospital in India. She surmised that business and management was also a safe bet for getting a good job, which was particularly important to her, considering she was in a different country, without family. This all led Patel to Rotman, where she enrolled in the program’s Morning Evening MBA (MEMBA) program. “I knew that if I wanted to do an MBA, it had to be from Rotman,” she says. The reputation of the school and the networking opportunities it offers influenced her decision. “I had heard from a friend about the invaluable connections he made, and I wanted that experience too.”

Once she enrolled, Patel immersed herself in everything Rotman had to offer. She joined the Healthcare Management Association (HMA), which regularly worked alongside The Sandra Rotman Centre for Health Sector Strategy to organize healthcare industry events. Patel says the networking experiences from events like these were valuable. At her first HMA industry night, she connected with Zayna Khayat, a guest speaker and Rotman adjunct professor. "She said, ‘If you are interested in healthcare consulting, there’s a course you need to take.’ On her recommendation, I took Healthcare and Life Sciences Consulting – and that advice changed everything for me.” That course confirmed for Patel that she wanted to be a healthcare consultant.

Other important courses for Patel included Financial Accounting and Reporting, where she learned how to think beyond the numbers, and Managerial Negotiations. “My number one takeaway was understanding how to navigate complex negotiations,” she says. Another pivotal course was Power and Influence in Organizations, which Patel says proved essential for her understanding of organizational dynamics. “It helped me see where true power resides in organizations.”

Patel says her interactions with C-suite leaders during a course called C-Suite: Living Out Leadership Day to Day for Organizational Impact also inspired her. “We got to meet so many wonderful leaders - including Dean Susan Christoffersen.” She notes her career coach played a major role in her success as well. “Amy [Richard]’s insights helped me navigate my career transition from dentistry to consulting. She was not just my coach. She was my mentor - and sometimes a therapist too!”

Today, Patel works at Deloitte as a consultant on their healthcare solutions team. She’s involved in projects that aim to improve healthcare delivery. “We solve problems for organizations, helping them implement technology, improve operations and streamline processes,” she says. “We work closely with clients to understand their needs and to develop tailored solutions.”

She says she applies lessons from Rotman to her work at Deloitte every day. “I learned to create budgets, develop marketing strategies, and understand the operational side of healthcare organizations,” she says.

“Rotman didn’t just give me a degree. It expanded my horizons.”