Cleveland-Marshall College of Law student Kimberly Cunningham’s mother has been challenged with a chronic illness. As Kim has helped care for her mother, she gained firsthand experience of the complexity of the appointments, medical bills and stacks of paperwork that have all been part of the medical process. Thinking as a legal student, Kim became curious the role laws play in the process.
“I started thinking about how the larger medical system works and what I could understand about it from a legal standpoint,” said Cunningham.
For Cunningham, this thinking led her to embrace an opportunity early in her law school career to pursue health care law, and specifically health care compliance, as part of C|M|LAW’s Center for Health Law and Policy. She had been looking to focus on a specialty with defined career opportunities and was excited to dive in to an area of the law that is ever changing and has a tangible impact on people’s lives.
“Health care is something everyone needs and almost no one understands,” explained Cunningham. “Being a health care attorney will give me the opportunity to bridge that gap and allow me to reach my ultimate goal of helping and protecting patients through difficult times.”
Cunningham, who is scheduled to graduate from C|M|LAW in the spring with certificates in Health Care Law and Health Care Compliance, confirmed this was the area of law she wanted to enter after completing an externship with The MetroHealth System. During her externship with the hospitals, she completed a comprehensive checklist of compliance programs, conducted policy audits, participated in privacy walk-throughs to monitor for adherence to all policies concerning privacy, and researched and reported on legal issues related to HIPAA and HITECH.
The externship was especially important for Cunningham because she does not have a background in patient care or working in a hospital setting. However, she does benefit from a longtime background in the law, having worked as a paralegal for three law firms. Cunningham continues to work full time as a senior paralegal while attending C|M|LAW’s evening program, and has achieved a far greater understanding of the work taking place at the firm during her legal studies.
“I see everything differently now,” said Cunningham. “Documents that I have worked with for years, it’s like they are written in a different language now because I know how to read them and why certain items are in there that I did not understand before.”
Working full-time while attending law school can be challenging for an individual’s personal health and Cunningham feels it is important to promote all-around healthy living as part of working in health care. Before law school, she taught boot camp fitness classes, an activity she had originally started participating in through a corporate fitness challenge. Being forced to give that up while spending evenings at law school, Cunningham has found a new challenge to keep her mentally and physically fit: She’s training for a half marathon that she is scheduled to complete early in 2018.