TheMightyAngus said:
bluejay68, since you've completed the MD/MBA program at Penn and several of us on here are seriously considering Penn, could you discuss your experience as a dual-degree graduate? Specifically, what your plans are post-residency? How do you plan to incorporate biz training into your practice in EM? How did Penn prepare you to make a career choice that utilizes the dual-degree? Did you feel that the residency PD's considered the MD/MBA to be a positive thing, or did they in any way assume you weren't going to be practicing medicine in the future?
Sorry for the barrage of questions, unfortunately, I didn't meet any MD/MBA's at Penn during interview day and am trying to figure out if it's something I should try to pursue.
Here are some general thoughts on my experience as a dual degree graduate (these are just a couple of the many things I took from my time in the program):
- Penn did a great job of preparing me for whatever I wanted to do on either side of the street - I felt like I was competitive for virtually every type of business job and medical specialty that I desired (caveat is that your spare time is limited by the dual degree, so an early focus is key for more competitive opportunities)
- Medical school and Business school are very different animals and it was very interesting to experience both; I felt a little like a "professional student" by the time I hit business school. My peers at Wharton all had more real-world experience than me while I had more grad school experience; I found myself well prepared to study and do well on exams while my peers had more to offer in class discussions
- B-school offered me some very interesting professional development that I felt was lacking in the basic medical education; namely professional communication skills, problem-solving frameworks and a more broad understanding of the US health care system
As far as my plans to integrate my medical and business experiences into my career, this is a challenging question. I had an opportunity to pursue a purely business career straight out of school (consulting), but I just felt like I liked clinical medicine too much to give up on it so early in my career (I really felt like trying to match after spending a few years in the business world would not be practical for several reasons, both personal and professionally). As a result, I find myself nearly halfway through my intern year now, just trying to get from one rotation to the next and learning as much medicine as I can to be a good doctor. My business skills and aspirations are unfortunately very much on hold right now, but I plan on trying to change that after this year.
As a resident, I hope to get involved in research that has a business/management spin, network with leaders in my department and hospital system and start to carve out a niche for myself. My aspiration at this point is to find an attending job out of residency that offers a significant amount of management responsibility right away (the traditional dogma in medicine is for clinicians to incorporate more management into their career as it winds down; I really want to challenge this and find a place that trusts me enough to give me these opportunities eary on). So right now, it looks like provider management/clinical practice is the route I am taking. But do you want to know the beautiful thing about the combined degree? If this does not appeal to me down the road and I change my mind, there are many, many different paths I can take that are all potentially rewarding professionally, personally and financially.
When you apply to the program (and I would stress that you should apply AFTER you are a medical student, not straight out of undergrad), they want to hear a very concrete story as to what you plan to do with your combined degree. I would encourage you to talk to as many people as you can and think about what kind of career you want and then answer this question to the best of you ability. Just realize that you are by no means locked into this story and you have every right to change your plans as your life evolves.
In regard to the response from interviewers that I received, I think nearly all felt it was a positive that I had this additional experience. The important thing was to emphasize that I was very much committed to clinical medicine. I think maybe in the back of their minds a couple of them thought I may be tempted to drop out for a better paying job with more reasonable hours because such an opportunity would be much more available to me than to other applicants. I felt like during the interview as long as I spoke about my commitment to practicing medicine, then my business school experience just acted as a unique experience that made me different. I also found that at just about every place I visited, there was an attending that was working on some research that involved resource management or some other aspect of medicine with a business twist; I always tried to learn about this person ahead of time and even meet them on my interview day; they invariably were excited to see an applicant with business experience/interests and as a result, the interview day usually went quite well.