Coe College senior pursues expedited degree to impact rural health care
An awareness of health care disparities between urban and rural areas is driving a Coe College senior to take advantage of Coe’s 3+2 degree partnership program in public health. Hailey Meacham ’25 is a current Kohawk pursuing a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health (MPH at the University of Iowa) dual degree, utilizing the expedited program which allows students to earn a bachelor's and MPH in just five years, compared to the usual six. Participating students are able to study the health care ecosystem deeply, but can enter the workforce earlier.
Coe also has expedited 3+3 degree programs in law with both the University of Iowa and Drake University, as well as a 3+2 agreement with Drake to earn a master's of science in clinical mental health counseling. All programs reduce the amount of time attending classes by one year.
Meacham is currently majoring in biology, psychology and neuroscience, with a health and society studies minor at Coe. The opportunity to study all subjects through a health care lens, like Meacham has, is facilitated at Coe through the David and Janice McInally Center for Health & Society (CHS). Within the CHS, students have access to dedicated advising and space for health exploration across areas of study. Meacham will be continuing her public health studies in pursuit of an MPH degree next fall.
Growing up in a small town in Iowa, Meacham has always known she wanted to work in the health care field, specifically focusing on rural family medicine. She describes the challenges of rural health care in her hometown.
“The cardiologist comes once a month, the podiatrist comes once a month and the dermatologist comes once a month, so it’s very hard to get in. You can drive to Des Moines, which is about an hour away, but for older people, or if you don’t have access to a car, it can be very difficult,” Meacham said.
Meacham’s interest in participating in the 3+2 program was piqued during the spring of her sophomore year at Coe when she received an email from the program director. Seeing an opportunity to complete her master’s degree quickly while gaining invaluable hands-on experience, Meacham enrolled in the introductory course required to apply.
During her time at Coe, Meacham has had numerous opportunities to gain practical experience in the field through internships and classes, especially thanks to Coe’s convenient location in the Med Quarter Regional Medical District (MedQ) of Cedar Rapids. Covering 55 square blocks and including more than 500 medical providers, the MedQ creates advantages for Kohawks like the May Term health and sciences internship, in which they can shadow multiple medical professionals, including doctors across the street from campus, for a month without taking other classes. It’s an intensive and immersive way to ensure health care is the right field for the participating students, and is only possible with an urban location like Coe’s that attracts a multitude of health providers.
With two major hospitals within walking distance of campus and a deep network of Coe alumni in the city, Meacham was able to expansively explore the urban health care system and how it differed from her hometown. In the summer between her sophomore and junior years, she interned at the Dallas County Health Department where she was able to learn about nutrition education, vaccine clinics, environmental community behavioral health and more.
“It was good to see the other fields of public health besides just what I thought public health was,” Meacham said.
Internships are cornerstones of a Coe education for many students, and Coe has been named a Top 25 Best Private School for Internships for 6 of the last 7 years. The hours Meacham spent at the internship helped her immensely in her application for the program, which requires 80 hours of service. Through Coe, Meacham was also able to study health care in Belize for May term, another experience that she “loved.” She hopes to use her degrees to travel and learn about other health care systems around the world.
Meacham will graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Coe in May 2025, and go on to graduate from the University of Iowa with a master’s in public health in the spring of 2026. After that, she hopes to attend medical school and continue finding ways to benefit the community through public health.
“Long term, down the road, I want to work on a county hospital board expanding health care in rural communities because there’s a large disparity,” she said.