about what I want to do in the fourth and final quarter of my career. I thought about younger me. On the wall of my bedroom is a letter I wrote to the President of the local school board arguing for girls' rights at school. The President kept it, framed it, and gifted it to me at my wedding; she told me to keep trying to make the world a better, fairer place. Teaching women about the importance of health equity is what I want to do.
With some help from my dad, 5th grade Marjorie wrote this:
I've given much thought
Dear President Marshall,
At Washington School there is a problem of what is discrimination. Only the boys get to go on the field and play baseball even though the girls want to play also. The boys don’t mind us playing and competing, but Principal Malone won’t allow the girls to compete. The girls don’t think it's fair because we can with the boys in P.E. so why would our lunch recess make it different. We have talked to Principal Malone, and he says we’ll get hurt too easily except the girls believe boys hurt also and as easily as girls. We, us girls, feel that we have a reasonable complaint and ask for you to look over the situation.
Very Truly Yours,
Marjorie Anne Magdich
I also thought about high school and college-aged me,
who wanted to help people live better lives and understand themselves better. That led me to my initial career path, counseling. I left counseling because I did not like the day-in-day-out pace of being in a single room for 8-12 hours a day. That was not a fit for me! Teaching about mental wellbeing is a way to fulfill that passion, outside of the office walls and outside of one-on-one counseling.
Marjorie Erdmann, PhD, MS
is Director of the OSU Center for Health Systems Innovation. She received a master’s in human relations and child development from OSU in 1993. She received her PhD in Business Administration from OSU in 2022. She is focused on the future of health and healthcare. Her dissertation research discovered bases for human trust in AI, helping to illuminate how AI will transform workforces.
Prior to joining CHSI in 2014, she worked in the healthcare industry for 20 years, spanning both direct services in mental healthcare and the business services in business development, insurance contracting, network creation, consulting and more. She has worked for big pharma companies and small start-ups.
During those 20 years, she launched some of Oklahoma’s first integrated mental healthcare and telehealth programs. She continues to create novel access to mental healthcare.
As CHSI Director, Marjorie leads her team in tackling our biggest healthcare challenges such as access to care in rural areas, mental healthcare, smoking cessation, patient engagement, the nursing shortage, hospital safety, care efficiency, poor outcomes, and ER crowding. Marjorie’s solutions have been published by leading healthcare organizations such as the American Medical Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Her new targets are some of the largest gaps in healthcare - women’s health and mental wellbeing. Both of these have been on the decline in the United States. She has a mission to inspire people to advocate for equity, to support innovation and to take bold, empowered actions for their own health.