Md/mba

[sunshine02]

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This is a relatively new program, and it takes about 5 years to complete at most schools. Has anyone done so or know anybody who has and can provide some insight into this degree? Do you think it's helpful or a complete waste of time? I'm interested in practicing medicine but also being involved in the management side of health care. Does an MD/MBA degree get you more salary, and will having this dual degree make you look more impressive to employers?

 

[Frazier]

There is an entire md/mba subforum on sdn. Check it out under interdisciplinary section

 

[Frazier]

This is a relatively new program, and it takes about 5 years to complete at most schools. Has anyone done so or know anybody who has and can provide some insight into this degree? Do you think it's helpful or a complete waste of time? I'm interested in practicing medicine but also being involved in the management side of health care. Does an MD/MBA degree get you more salary, and will having this dual degree make you look more impressive to employers?

Mba degrees hold a lot of their utility intrinsic to the asset of networking during the program. That said, how useful will the networking be since the typical med student will have 5+ years of med training before entering the workforce? The connections will likely stagnate to some amount by then...

Duel degree does not warrant a higher salary, on its own merits. of course the hypothetical md/mba that is ceo of XYZ hospital system will make more than a regular MD...kicker is that the ceo didnt need the mba to get there necessarily.

As for desirability, prob depend on employer. Most are neutral/indifferent. Standard hospital-based md will have very little use for mba training if he doesn't fxn outside the clinic.

Even if the mba degree did get you 10k more annually as an md, the cost you pay for the extra year in school is real. Coa for the mba may approach 80k+ in many cases, couple that with lost year of income and you paid 250k in opportunity costs for the degree (ignoring interest on loan). How will it pay off with the 10k extra on salary? Well, simplify to a linear formula and ignoring time value of money: 25 years of practicing to break even with that (fantasy) salary boost.

 

[thlaxer]

I considered doing this earlier on, but one physician I spoke with said that it's better to do the MBA after your training when you've got some more real world experience (and a better idea of what you want to do with the degree).