Dr. Susan Rucker is an Assistant Professor in the Master of Health Administration program at Queens University in Charlotte. She has more than 35 years of healthcare leadership experience in areas that progressed from hospital administration to consulting to graduate-level teaching. As a hospital administrator, she specialized in corporate strategy, long-term planning, bond refinancing, Certificate of Need, corporate wellness programs, medical staff development planning, and supply chain management. She implemented her experience as the vice president of the healthcare consulting division of a national consulting firm. Then, she became president of Priority Assist Inc., a midsized consulting firm that utilized her expertise in strategy, program development, corporate wellness, medical staff development, and executive leadership support to small community hospitals, healthcare consulting firms, and large healthcare systems for more than 14 years. In all of her professional and volunteer endeavors, she uses her experience to highlight and mitigate health disparities. In 2000, at the Medical University of South Carolina, she achieved the honor of being the first female in the U.S. to earn a Doctorate in Health Administration. Dr. Rucker has worked in higher education since 2004, while maintaining a few consulting clients.
Dr. Rucker has achieved the Fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives (FACHE) credential; the gold standard for healthcare competency, knowledge, and commitment. She earned her BA in Science at LaRoche College, her Master of Health Administration (MHA) from the University of Pittsburgh’s renowned Graduate School of Public Health, and her Doctor of Health Administration (DHA) from the Medical University of South Carolina.