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What is the benefit of having a MD/MBA degree? Do you run your own hospital or something?
Getting a MD to not go into medicine is a complete waste of time, money, and happiness.
Which MBA? Let's say from HBS, Wharton, Tuck or Booth you could go into PE, HF, VC, IB or Consulting. From Darden or Kelley MM IBs (Piper, Raymond James), MM PE, Second tier consulting firms (Accenture, Booz, Monitor), industry (Medtronics, Pfizer) or go to a decent admin gig. A C-level job at a decent hospital may take 15 or more years. MBAs from the top 30 are the only ones that are worth it i.e. Ivy League, Stanford, UCLA Anderson, Berkley Haas and Indiana. Lower tier MBAs aren't worth it and I would recommend at least 2 years and preferably 4 or 5 of business experience.
Getting to the point where having an MBA will be useful (department head, partner in a fairly large private practice) when you compare it to the opportunity cost of getting one (seeing more patients, working more hours, enjoying life more) will take a lot of time.Well everyone seems to be negative about MD/MBA. Personally, I wouldn't get one, but the head of my local hospital's ER has an MD/MBA and it definitely shines through.
When I volunteered, it was the most efficient ward in the hospital... He had monthly reports which included detailed accounts of EVERYTHING that went on the the ER. In the staff/break lounge there were charts that showed the efficiency of the ER increasing every year. Discharge and admission times were cut in half, and it looked like equipment and supply usage was becoming more and more conservative.
I can also see a practical use in a private practice setting. Running a business is a pretty big task... Without business know how and furthered education, you could bankrupt a practice in a matter of months.
Getting to the point where having an MBA will be useful (department head, partner in a fairly large private practice) when you compare it to the opportunity cost of getting one (seeing more patients, working more hours, enjoying life more) will take a lot of time.
It just depends on your goals. For many people in the medical fields, even an online MBA is fine since the goal is to learn more about practice management. There are certain places and even online MBAs that cater more towards healthcare fields. Just as there are certain schools in that list that may be at the top overall, but are crap for certain areas.
I won't say it is "worthless" because there are things you can do with it, but it is worthless to go to medical school with the aspiration of doing pretty much any of the jobs listed there.
Why? Non-clinical jobs are becoming much more common, doing IB, PE, consulting and VC are certainly better on average in terms of remuneration. Also a large number of people find that clinical practice is miserable, that the pay is poor in relation to the hours worked and that they would be more valued elsewhere. Having an MD or DO makes it easier to do healthcare PE, VC and consulting in particular.
The only MBAs that are worth are top 30. If you want to learn practice management skills, books, DVDs and conferences are a lot cheaper, only do an MBA if you want to advance your career or shift careers. The point of an MBA is learning from your classmates and networking. Lower tier MBAs usually have poorer students and it is more difficult to learn from them.
I haven't seen any MD/MBA programs that are less than 6 years in length. An MD by itself is four years and an MBA by itself is 2 years. So you really aren't saving any time (or money!) by doing a combined MD/MBA. If circumstances in your life make you say "Hey, I would like to get an MBA" in fifteen years, then go ahead and do it then.
Getting to the point where having an MBA will be useful (department head, partner in a fairly large private practice) when you compare it to the opportunity cost of getting one (seeing more patients, working more hours, enjoying life more) will take a lot of time.
I haven't seen any MD/MBA programs that are less than 6 years in length. An MD by itself is four years and an MBA by itself is 2 years. So you really aren't saving any time (or money!) by doing a combined MD/MBA. If circumstances in your life make you say "Hey, I would like to get an MBA" in fifteen years, then go ahead and do it then.