Out of the Box

[risktaker]

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I have lots of post about people attending different schools in US and Caribbeans and discussing all about residency placement and finally setting up clinic.
It feels like this is the norm if you get in medicine, residency and then private or hospital practice. But there are vast many options open for doctors who choose not do a specialist. For example, they get employed in Pharmaceutical companies, health agencies, governmental organizations, teaching faculty, etc etc. I have seen any one talk anything on them, even though lot of people like this exist out there in the world.
And then ofcourse there are certain doctors who do not plan on residency but rather do a MD/PhD or a MD/MBA. I know this first hand, as my Toxicology professor is MD/PhD and is involved in high end research and one of the most respected and well known Professors in NOrth America.
Personally, I do not wish to be stuck with academia for the rest of my life and hence PhD is not for me. But, as the degree is becoming more well known MD/MBA is something of interest.
And at any point in Doctors life you have to use business skills in order to set up your own practice. There is politics in every field be it business, pharmacy, medicine or politics itself. In order to stay and be at the top of the curve you need to have business skills, that can make more patients come to you than the other GP down the road or making good connections in hospital setting that can get you that right fellowship than the competition.

So when those things are considered, what are the options open for a Doc if in case he decides to start work at a pharma company or health agency or similar orgnization in probably drug dosage planning or watever
BUT NOT DO RESIDENCY??

Lets brainstorm and throw some light on this...... shall we!

 

[dragonfly99]

Good question.
However, in my opinion (IM doc with residency completed) most of the good jobs in industry/business are for physicians who have completed a residency. There are foreign-trained MD's who never did a residency, but from what I've heard they would make similar to what a MBA or PhD (with no MD) would make, since they never did a US residency. I might be wrong, but I think I'm pretty close to being right. The really high paying jobs in industry are for the straight business types (with no MD) or the occasional MD +/- an MBA who was really successful in basic research or invented some cool medical device (like for surgery, etc.) and got lured away for academia by a bribe/great money offer from a company.

I think whenever you get a degree, you need to think about what are you getting the degree for. IMHO a MD degree without a residency (or at least an internship) is not all that useful in the US. If you just want to get into the business side of health care, and not treat patients, I wouldn't even get an MD. Just get a master's in hospital administration or something...it will take a year or two and you could get the same jobs (or better ones, likely) than an MD with no residency, or an MD who never finished all of his/her residency. Alternatively, just go work for a while with your bachelor's degree, then go back after 3-4 years and go for an MBA...finish that in a couple of years. At that point you'll be probably still younger than any physician who has done med school+residency, and you'll be more employable (for a business type job).

As far as an MBA helping you get more patients in your practice, I'm not sure that's true. Patients choose doctors mostly because they heard the doctor has a good bedside manner, and/or the doctor participates/accepts their particular health insurance plan. Also, if you live somewhere there aren't as many doctors (like US rural areas and smaller towns) you'll probably do better financially (but perhaps work harder) than doctors in big cities that have an oversupply of doctors. Some level of business savvy can help your practice be more efficient, but honestly you can hire someone to trouble shoot your practice (or collect bills for you) and I think that would be cheaper than getting an MBA. If you have a great interest in both practicing medicine AND in business, then perhaps MD/MBA makes sense, but for a lot of people I think it's a waste. The medical schools may like to promote the degree because they make money from it.