Business School After Medical School

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raptor5

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I figured since there was a law school after medical school thread why not start this one. Please tell me what you think? After Medical school I plan to get an MBA. Of course for an FP starting a practice it can be a plus but what about an ER doc or other specialty that joins a practice?

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I'm a couple of months away from finishing up a MD/MBA and there were four MDs in school with me while I was getting the dual degree. Three of them had finished training and practiced for a couple of years and then decided that they weren't happy with medicine. They've gone on to get really high paying consulting gigs with pharm companies, biotech firms, and big consulting powerhouses. The last guy had just graduated from school and decided to go back and do a residency after b-school. If you've got specific questions about b-school from a MD's perspective, shoot me a PM...
 
yes I have a question.

Are any of these great gigs with the pharmaceutical companies (or whatever) for the MD/MBA's really paying any better than the normal gigs for the rest of the MBA's graduating (assuming they found work at all).

I'll take Columbia as an example (only because I know people who went there). A typical grad (who found a job) might have started at an outfit like McKinsey and Co. for something in the area of $140,000. Does the MD/MBA really make more than that to start?

Judd
 
I'll take Columbia as an example (only because I know people who went there). A typical grad (who found a job) might have started at an outfit like McKinsey and Co. for something in the area of $140,000. Does the MD/MBA really make more than that to start?

My wife works for GSK and they recently hired a medical director for Immunology. The job paid something around 300-400K. The person they hired was board certified in Rheumatology with an MBA. I am not sure how much he practiced or whether he went right into industry after resindency but I can tell you that Big Pharma pays a good amount without a lot of hassle. There are those jobs though that have M.D./D.O. requirements but do not require any type of BE/BC or licensing. These jobs start at about 100-120K with yearly bonuses of about 5-10%. This is just a lab job. Sometimes it may be hard to get into a Pharm Co. in a high dollar position without being in the trenches for a few years to understand exactly what they do there. I think though with BE/BC in some field that they may want plus an MBA will probably land you a 150K+ job. It really is hard to say since this industry does hold down wages quite a bit , unless you are a sales rep. If anybody has first hand knowledge chime in b/c these are just my general observations for one Co. at one location.

Raptor5
 
To my understanding, having the MBA is not the differentiating factor necessarily. Everyone's got an MBA in business/pharma, in fact vanilla MBA may be better at their jobs than MD/MBAs because of work experience.

From looking through the classifieds, it seems that the high dollar MD jobs go to those who have strong research/publishing backgrounds who can lead/design/monitor trials and/or those with experience pushing things through FDA (like being a former FDA committee member). People coming from academics tend to fair very well in this job market (experience as principal investigators for example). That said, seems like having the MBA levels the playing field with the MD kicking you over the top. That also said, big pharma is different than little biotech... in little biotech, you need to be really well rounded on the MD and MBA side to run the organization because of limited head count.
 
Pardon my ignorance. What's BE and BC?

Judd
 
I would say based on my experience at one top 10 b-school and having friends at other similarly ranked schools (top 3-15, not top 3), that starting salaries for MD/MBAs without residency are exactly the same in large companies as those with just an MBA. Don't know if they progress faster at the company though I somehow doubt it.

MBAs with significant medical experience can sometimes jump to non-entry level spots (e.g Medical director type jobs), but in general, that is rare in large traditional MBA jobs (e.g. I-Banking, Management Consulting, etc.) Exceptions might be found in areas like Venture Capital and start-ups where the ability to do multiple jobs can be more highly valued.

On the other hand, having a MD does make you a more attractive person on paper at a lot of companies (esp. health care companies) and will help you get your foot in the door to an interview that you might not otherwise get. After that it is up to you. Outside folks tend to think having an MD means you are smart (little do they know!) so you can leverage that to your benefit.
 
I am considering the MBA MPH route.
 
do most doctors who go get their MBAs specialize in internal medicine or family practice? are there any job opportunities/advantages for an anesthesiologist to get an MBA?
 
People specialize in all sorts of things. I am a surgical resident. We have 1 plastic surgery resident doing it now with a general surgery and a plastics resident enrolling next year. In the exec MBA program there was at least 1 anesth. attending doing it as well as a nephrologist. The evening program had an Infectious disease fellow and a local community internist in it. Many of these people returned to the practice of medicine, others went into all sorts of varied businesses from consulting to pharma.

My advice to you Prominence is that:
you (and your wife, who is the genesis of these multiple repeated questions on non medical jobs for MDs as I recall) need to go visit a b-school and a law school, etc. and talk to the career counselors there since obviously you have not been satisfied with the answers given here in the past. Also, perhaps your medical school counselors could help too. Believe it or not, most medical schools have a few people every year who choose to never practice medicine at all. You (or your wife) are not alone.
 
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