# How Ann Justi built a career in healthcare and tech September 21, 2026 • 5 minutes ![Matt Bukowski](https://uop.scene7.com/is/image/phoenixedu/matthew-bukowski-headshot-360x360.webp?fmt=webp-alpha&qlt=70&fit=constrain,1&wid=360) Written by [Matt Bukowski](/blog/authors/matt-bukowski.html) ![Meet our alumni Ann Justi, Master of Information Systems](https://uop.scene7.com/is/image/phoenixedu/blog-hero-alumni-ann-justi.webp?fmt=webp-alpha&qlt=70&fit=constrain,1&wid=700) Ann Justi’s mom used to tell her, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” Well, Justi took her mom’s advice to heart and became the busiest person she could be. After spending decades in IT and healthcare, she is today a medical secretary, a patient access specialist, a yoga therapist, an author and contributing writer, a public speaker and a life coach — and she’s not finished.  ## How did Ann Justi’s education lead to a career in IT? Ann Justi comes from a family that appreciates the value of education: Her father has both a PhD and MD, and her mother is a teacher. “They opened a college savings fund for me when I was 5,” says Justi, “before they even had the option for special [accounts] for that sort of thing.” Justi was quick to follow in their footsteps, learning to read before age 5 by reading the newspaper aloud to her mom while she prepared dinner after work. She continued to advance ahead of the curve, starting college courses while in high school and eventually graduating with a bachelor’s degree in communications. She took a minor in political science and some nursing courses at the community college for good measure. Out of all that education, it was a long computer course during her undergraduate education that sent Justi down the road to IT. “In 1985, I had a temp-to-perm job working for a building disbursement and management company where I worked on a minicomputer IBM System/32,” says Justi. “They wanted someone to be a clerk for managing the data that needed to be put in, [and for] running reports and creating disbursements.” It turned out to be a good fit for Justi, who took to the complexity of the job. “The secret,” she says, “is writing everything down.” It set her on a path of various IT jobs before landing at a major insurance provider, where she worked for nearly two decades — before hitting a wall. She had met the salary cap, and any enhancement would require a master’s degree. ## How did Justi earn her master’s degree while working? As Justi considered options, her instincts for IT drew her to University of Phoenix, where she was impressed by the idea of an entirely online education. “I knew a University of Phoenix grad,” says Justi, “and before I talked with her, I didn’t think it would even be possible to go[back to school while working full time](https://www.phoenix.edu/blog/how-to-balance-full-time-work-and-school.html).” There were difficulties. Justi estimates she went through three printers in under a year, for example. But she found her instructors were flexible and helped her balance her coursework with her day job. “And tech support was just great,” she adds. Justi was especially struck by the[rigor of her program](https://www.phoenix.edu/blog/academic-rigor-at-university-of-phoenix-explained.html)as well as its eye-opening perspective. “When you get a master’s degree, it’s not just learning about the subject,” she says. “You’re really learning how to study, how to write, how to view things from the perspective of the CEO, to the IT team, to the end user.” Justi recognized how her online experience mirrored, and even predicted, her professional one. She found herself practicing with telecommunication tools and asynchronous workflows all before she graduated in 2007. “I work for an international company,” she says, “and learning with University of Phoenix meant working as an individual and as a team the same way I did at work. We were teams of people from all over the world.”  ## How did Justi turn career challenges into new opportunities? Justi spent nearly a decade continuing to work for the same company after earning her degree but was laid off during a 2016 reorganization. It was a difficult time: Her mother passed away, her boyfriend was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and she was set to lose her healthcare policy when her job ended. Justi didn’t take this lying down. She and her fiancé moved up their wedding so she could join his insurance (a story documented by[NPR](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/14/519433009/love-in-the-time-of-repeal-and-replace)), and she found work when a recruiter noticed that decades prior, Justi had worked with software that would be crucial for delivering the COVID-19 vaccine in hospitals. Justi stepped into what was a temp job at the time and turned it into a full-time medical secretary position at an academic medical center and research institution in New York City — putting her firmly at the intersection of technology and healthcare. This is a full-circle moment for someone whose career journey began with nursing and computer classes more than 40 years ago. The job has provided a stability that has allowed Justi to pursue her many passion projects, including running her own business as a yoga therapist and life coach. She’s also writing her second book, for which her University of Phoenix experience has been particularly useful: “The No. 1 bonus of being a University of Phoenix alum are the library tools,” says Justi, “so I have a citation generator for my book.” More than anything, with more than 20 years between graduating high school and getting her master’s, Justi says she wants people to see how much is possible, regardless of how long it takes. “I want people to also understand that it’s never too late to start a degree,” she says.  ![UOPX logo](/blog/2026/09/how-ann-justi-built-a-career-in-healthcare-and-tech/_jcr_content/root/container_14213/columns/responsivegrid1/container/container_3768771_co/container_279425874_/container_1111564326/image.coreimg.png/1772059154423/bird-white.png) ## PHOENIX FAST FACTS ![Alumna Ann Justi](https://uop.scene7.com/is/image/phoenixedu/ann-justi-headshot-360x360.webp?fmt=webp-alpha&qlt=70&fit=constrain,1&wid=360) How education brought Ann Justi to the intersection of healthcare and tech ### Job title Medical secretary ### Company An academic medical center and research institution in New York City ### UOPX degree - [Master of Information Systems](/online-information-technology-degrees/information-systems-masters-degree.html)(2007) ### Resumé at a glance - Medical secretary - Patient access specialist - Author - Yoga therapist - Life coach   ### What advice would you offer a prospective student considering schools? ![Quotation mark](/blog/2026/09/how-ann-justi-built-a-career-in-healthcare-and-tech/_jcr_content/root/container_14213/columns/responsivegrid1/container/container_3768771_co/container_279425874_/container_copy_copy__1846530867/container/image.coreimg.png/1772058669328/quotes.png) Be ready to learn not just from your instructors, but from your colleagues and classmates. Your degree is about discipline; it’s about curiosity, being part of a team and being dependable.” Read more articles like this: [UOPX Alumni: Ann Diese Alumni Chronicles October 18, 2024 • 7 minutes](/blog/uopx-alumni-ann-diese.html)[UOPX Faculty Erick Lear Alumni Chronicles August 23, 2021 • 3 minute read](/blog/uopx-faculty-erick-lear.html)[UOPX Alumni Shantavia Webb Alumni Chronicles July 01, 2025 • 8 minutes](/blog/uopx-alumni-shantavia-webb.html) ![Headshot of Matt Bukowski](https://uop.scene7.com/is/image/phoenixedu/matthew-bukowski-headshot-360x360.webp?fmt=webp-alpha&qlt=70&fit=constrain,1&wid=360) ### ABOUT THE AUTHOR Matt Bukowski is a writer and educator with an MFA in writing from American University. His professional writing career spans professional training, IT and software design, test prep, writing instruction, data narrative and PR. Matt lives in Virginia with his wife, three children, two cats and a stack of overdue library books. ![checkmark](/content/experience-fragments/edu/us/en/blog/article-vetted-blurb/master/_jcr_content/root/container_copy/container/image_2120429180_cop.coreimg.svg/1701890876580/differentiators-check.svg) This article has been vetted by University of Phoenix's editorial advisory committee.  [Read more about our editorial process.](/blog/editorial-process.html) ```html ```