DPM/MBA vs DPM Degree?

[DrMarx]

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So, I had a recent run in with co-workers about a DPM/MBA degree. The conversation was about how financially successful one could be with the DPM/MBA dual degree as opposed to one without the MBA dual degree. Personally, I see it as a good investment as a business degree would help you with owning multiple practices/gaining income through marketing practices. However, others have said that the MBA degree would be useless because marketing practices doesn't require the knowledge provided MBA degree. I just wanted the SDN community's opinion because I'm a little ignorant on the matter. Thanks! 🙂

 

[dudestheman90]

So, I had a recent run in with co-workers about a DPM/MBA degree. The conversation was about how financially successful one could be with the DPM/MBA dual degree as opposed to one without the MBA dual degree. Personally, I see it as a good investment as a business degree would help you with owning multiple practices/gaining income through marketing practices. However, others have said that the MBA degree would be useless because marketing practices doesn't require the knowledge provided MBA degree. I just wanted the SDN community's opinion because I'm a little ignorant on the matter. Thanks! 🙂

mba degree is useless, just another way for them to make more money. funny story about my shadowing experience. I was shadowing in a group practice, the pod i was shadowing told me to consider another field and told me about how im young and don't understand what im getting myself into. Basically he went on and told me how his practice got shut down since he couldnt keep up with the bills and lower reimbursements and how he had to move to another state to join a group practice. Realize your putting in a huge committment into your future. Make sure you learn as much as you can even things regarding running a business and how to go about with the challenges of modern healthcare. Talk to other pods and see what they have to say. Educate yourself as much as possible b/c the real world isn't peaches and cream, it's tough and brutal. Good luck

 

[kinokoboy]

MBA's are worthless.

 

[DrRock44]

I would like to offer a different perspective. I have a B.S. in business management and I can tell you that doing an MBA is not worthless. I have shadowed several docs in private practice who have no idea what they are doing when it comes to generating revenue, running lean, and investment risk assessment. I am going to assume that these two posters did undergrad in something since related and are totally ignorant when it comes to business education and what you actually learn. A business degree teaches you economic paradigms as opposed to skills, and knowing about money in an ever changing economy and profession is far from useless.
Having said that, I personally would not recommend doing an MBA/DPM program unless you already had a decent business acumen. It would be hard to go into a program like that without having taken financial/managerial accounting and corporate finance. So if you want to get caught up on that stuff while taking all of your pod classes that actually matter, than go for it. However, keep in mind that just having the degree does nothing to improve your employability. Its only value is in you applying what you learn. Therefore it is my opinion that, in most cases, it is not worth the investment of time and money you will have to put into it. Not to mention the opportunity cost you would incur indirectly as a result of the MBA detracting from your DPM time/effort

 

[kinokoboy]

As somebody who has his undergraduate degree in accounting, I beg to differ with you. Business is just a common sense degree, whether its graduate or undergraduate, and it teaches you nothing on how to run a business. If you want to learn how to run your own business, well....start a business and learn from trial and error. After about 5-6 years, you should get the hang of it. One thing i highly recommend you do though is get a CPA who also has a JD for all your accounting and legal needs. If you need to, you can always do your own bookeeping but it gets to be a pain after a while so just hire an office manager to do it for you.

 

[DrRock44]

Accounting and management are two pretty different disciplines. I do wonder what the emphasis of the MBA program is since MBA's can vary drastically in coursework. If it were a heavy accounting (like the ones my school offers) MBAor finance, it would make it a lot less sense to pursue it as a dual degree

 

[kinokoboy]

"Business" isn't a discipline because it's a general degree. "Accounting" is a discipline because it's a vocational degree. Oh yeah, and from my own experience, accounting is the most difficult major in B school. A lot of people go into finance, marketing, business administration, and supply chain management because they can't do well in intermediate accounting 1 & 2.

 

[Robert De Niro]

Personally, I think it depends on what are your goals/aspirations after you complete your residency. If you want to own your own practice once your residency is complete, either through starting up your own (really tough in today's world) or buying a practice from a retiring podiatrist (more likely and hopefully a safer move), I believe having an MBA would be very convenient. In theory, you would have been taught the knowledge on how to best maintain (or grow) your practice while adjusting to life as an attending physician. Of course, knowledge of business and practice of business are two completely different things.

Where an MBA may not be as convenient or not even needed is if your plan on working in a clinic or hospital, where you will have little to no interaction with the business side of medicine. Being named an associate in an existing private practice could also be lumped in this category. Here you can focus on adjusting as a full time physician and more importantly, focus on the income you are bringing into the practice. Hopefully by time you are brought on as partner bc of your hard work as an associate, you learned something about a balance sheet, income statements, employee payroll and benefits, and other aspects one will need to know to operate a business.

This is my opinion on a MBA at least, I'm sure there are others.

 

[zdlamkin8195]

I wont start Pod school til the fall, but I have ALOT of experience working with surgeons and getting to be involved in their practices. The one thing that I have noticed is that the surgeons with the best mix of personality/surgical skills have the most successful business. Don't think that an MBA will make you successful...I've seen some that it just ended up costing them extra loan to pay back. At the end of the day, your business is you and your skills. Focus on that...

 

[rushrhees]

My two cents, what you need to know for running your own practice an MBA will not teach you a whole lot of that. MBA programs vary wide and far, some are more managerial and leadership oriented, some are more accounting, and others more finance and quatitative modeling. Most MBA classes are meant if you are running a big company, managing large investments or accounting that would go beyond the scope of the accounting you need. The other thing is you would probably have to take the GMAT and take some extra time for it. overall MBA's are a dime a dozen and not all that worth it anymore.