MD/MBA and Opening a hospital

[milliya]

I'm reposting this from "Med Business" where it was getting no love at all.

1. Someday, after I become a neonatologist, I want to open a children's hospital specializing in neonatal and prenatal care. Should I double major or just major in Business in undergrad?

2. In order to be eligible for a MD/MBA program (I'm just realizing such things exsist), do I have to graduate with a BA in Business or can I just have my BS in Biology? Or do I have to have both? (Similar to #1 I guess)

3. Do lots of schools offer a MD/MBA program? Can you please name some?

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[TexPre-Med]

I'm reposting this from "Med Business" where it was getting no love at all.

1. Someday, after I become a neonatologist, I want to open a children's hospital specializing in neonatal and prenatal care. Should I double major or just major in Business in undergrad?

2. In order to be eligible for a MD/MBA program (I'm just realizing such things exsist), do I have to graduate with a BA in Business or can I just have my BS in Biology? Or do I have to have both? (Similar to #1 I guess)

3. Do lots of schools offer a MD/MBA program? Can you please name some?

Texas Tech has such a program. Not sure how many do though. If you are talking about opening up a small clinic for prenatal care, an MBA would be worth the trouble (look into it).

If you are talking about an entire hospital, a practicing physician with an MBA worth of knowledge does not have the expertise to do so (and have it be productive). Now maybe if you retire from medicine and spend years in venture capitalism and start-up companies, maybe you would want to take this on with a team of people. It takes a lot of business knowledge to handle an entire hospital. If this is what you want to do, go straight business and forget medical school. If you just want to be on a team with businessmen to build a hospital, an MBA is not needed.

The MBA for doctors is mainly used for opening up your own private practice or academics. You can use it for other things obviously, but trying to open a hospital with an MBA and clinical experience is a waste of time in my opinion.

 

[scattun]

You don't have to have a degree in biology in order to go medical school, so I would think that you would be just fine with just the business major, or just the biology major for that matter. As long as you get the pre-reqs done what the degree says doesn't matter. I'm not sure if the lack of a business degree would matter when applying for those dual degree programs though. I would think not since something like half of all people nationwide getting an mba do not have an undergraduate business degree. Below is a link with a list of school that have md/mba programs according to aamc.

http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section3/degree2.cfm?data=yes&program=mdmba

 

[TupacalipseT96]

Heh you don't have to major in anything in particular to get an MBA. That is part of the appeal of i-banking/firms...just do well in college, be smart, and you will probably be able to find a job that will lead you into an MBA. But for most MD/MBA's you have to apply to each school seperately and be admitted to both independently. That means you have to be a qualified medical student and business student simultaneously. You're probably already on the right track to medical school, but to get the MD/MBA you will need "work experience". For most this means working at a consulting firm, etc... but I've heard stories of business schools seeing medical school or residency as "work experience". I've also heard from the stanford dean of admissions that if you get into their medical school, you're (off the record) "pretty much a shoe in if you want the MBA too".

Also you will (usually) have to take the GMAT on top of the MCAT. Enjoy.

 

[Medikit]

At wake a few people will complete ~1/3 of their 3rd year and then do a 1 year MBA program before returning to graduate with the class that was below them.

Another example would be that of a classmate who transferred from Wake to Georgetown and applied to Wharton and is currently enrolled there. He will return and finish his 3rd and 4th year at Georgetown.

 

[milliya]

thanks for the help everyone

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

I'm reposting this from "Med Business" where it was getting no love at all.

1. Someday, after I become a neonatologist, I want to open a children's hospital specializing in neonatal and prenatal care. Should I double major or just major in Business in undergrad?

2. In order to be eligible for a MD/MBA program (I'm just realizing such things exsist), do I have to graduate with a BA in Business or can I just have my BS in Biology? Or do I have to have both? (Similar to #1 I guess)

3. Do lots of schools offer a MD/MBA program? Can you please name some?

Suggestions/thoughts, I completed an MBA and am now applying to med schools..

1) Many MBA programs cost around the same, part of what you get from a well established one is contacts and access to professors who are accomplished in their fields. If the sole intent was to gain knowledge, one could do this by purchasing the books and self studying; much of the benefit to the program, however, comes from interaction with students with diverse experiences. The competitiveness of the program will dictate the average level of accomplishment of the students.

2) No, a degree in business is not required to be accepted to b-school. More competitive programs do not accept applicants without business experience, often 3-5 years. I'm not familiar with schools' policies on accepting an applicant who has already been accepted to the med school, maybe they're more lenient on requirements. The reason for the requirement is that in order to fully understand the importance of many business aspects, one must have firsthand experience.

3) Yes, many/most med schools offer dual degree programs, I know Northwestern/UIC/U Chicago/Harvard/Stanford/Colorado do, I'd check MSAR which lists this info.

Finally, from personal experience and after speaking with my primary care physician who is an MD/MBA, I'd put the MBA on hold pending completing med school, UNLESS you already have a number of years' work experience. My physician said that there was limited benefit to her to learning finance/accounting/leadership topics while partially through med school, as she could not apply them, and in this sense they were to some extent taught in a vacuum. (I did the MBA while working fulltime, and could apply/understand my coursework based on what I saw at the company). Depending on your city, MBA programs are almost all offered in an evening/weekend format, I studied with a few physicians while in b-school.

 

[Law2Doc]

I'm reposting this from "Med Business" where it was getting no love at all.

1. Someday, after I become a neonatologist, I want to open a children's hospital specializing in neonatal and prenatal care. Should I double major or just major in Business in undergrad?

2. In order to be eligible for a MD/MBA program (I'm just realizing such things exsist), do I have to graduate with a BA in Business or can I just have my BS in Biology? Or do I have to have both? (Similar to #1 I guess)

3. Do lots of schools offer a MD/MBA program? Can you please name some?

As others have mentioned, there is no benefit to majoring in biology (or even science) to go to med school. If you like business, major in business and take the prereqs. Second, an MBA is not a prerequisite to business. Most folks get MBAs AFTER they are in business. Which is why most good MBA programs want a couple of years of business experience and why most MBAs are paid for by employers, not students. There are many schools with MD/MBA programs, but it's not always a straight shot to parlay that into a particular job. And that degree will not teach you what you need to know to own and operate a hospital. Middle management experience, and rising through the ranks is where you tend to learn that. Next, there is no real advantage to having an MBA to open a hospital. What you need is a lot of friends with many millions of dollars to spare or loan you. If your goal is to open a hospital, an MBA is basically a waste of time -- it won't get you closer to your goal. An MBA tends to be most useful if you want to go into an existing management track (ie not start something new) in an industry you have already worked in, or if you want to leave the industry altogether and do something tangentially related, such as consulting. Starting a hospital is not going to be a realistic goal for most people on a medicine track (regardless of whether they have an MBA or not). You will neither have the time, the money or the connections needed. Which is why most, if not all, hospitals are set up by non-physicians, and then the MD-MBA types are brought in as management (not owners). Good luck with that.

 

[ryandote]

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[Law2Doc]

For the programs I looked at, "business experience" is not required or expected for admittance to the dual degree program. It is likely required if you decide to pursue an MBA after your MD degree, but I also hear that residency and practice will qualify you.

The dual degree programs purportedly count residency as the work experience you are going to have. But that to some extent damages the value of the MBA, which is a career enhancement, not a career starting degree. It isn't a professional degree -- folks use it to get promotions in an industry they are already in, not to get into business. So if you haven't worked in business before, you can't really leverage the MBA the same way the typical MBA student will. Which limits some of the paths you can use the MBA for. Folks tend to use it to get into hospital management or consulting. But it is actually a prerequisite for neither of these. The med school mindset makes you think you need a degree to get a job, because that is the way medicine works (and law, dentistry, veterinary, etc). Not so in business. You can and usually do get the business degree later down the road, to hone your skills, not create them.

But in terms of the OP's goals, that's neither here nor there. An MBA unattached to practical business experience isn't going to help you open and run a hospital from scratch. And without the business networks, it's not going to get you enough credibility to have folks throwing the necessary financing your way. I'd focus on the MD part for now, and revisit the rest when you are more focused and realistic in your goals.

 

[Perrotfish]

1) You don´t need to major in anything in particular to go into medicine, or into an MBA program. You could get an MD/MBA coming from an art history major if you did the MD prereqs. MBAs don´t even have the prereqs.

2) Many, many medical schools offer a dual MD/MBA, what varies is the competitiveness of the MBA admissions for those coming from the MD program. For some schools it´s pretty much automatic, for others very difficult.

3) Your ambitions are ludicrous and 99:1 will change before you even finish undergrad

 

[brianmartin]

You want to "open" a children's hospital? Not to sound negative or anything, but generally individuals do not "open" hospitals. Today it is even extremely rare for physician groups to own/operate hospitals. Do you want to be involved in administration? On the board? These are things people do later in their careers, and you don't need an MBA to do it...