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Do Physicians Need Business
Degrees? by Abigail Green
Consider your goals Whether or not to pursue an advanced business degree depends on a physician’s goals, said Michael Stahl, M.D., program director for the Physician Executive M.B.A. program at the University of Tennessee (UT) College of Business Administration. “If the goal is to evolve into a physician leadership role, then my advice is yes. If, however, the goal is to spend 100 percent of their time in a clinical role, then they do not need an M.B.A.” The UT program’s alumni include hospital presidents, medical directors of practices and companies, vice presidents of medical affairs and chief medical officers. In fact, applicants who are interested in strictly clinical roles won’t be accepted into the UT program, said Stahl. There are other ways short of an M.B.A. to gain business know-how. “If they just want to know a discrete piece of knowledge about a particular aspect of business,” for example, electronic medical records or legal issues, “then we would advise them to take a short course on that discrete subject,” said Stahl. “They don’t need an accredited M.B.A.” While considering your goals upfront is certainly advisable, it’s not the path taken by every M.D./M.B.A. Neonatal intensive care physician John G. DeMaio, says he “wasn’t motivated to get a new education because of the requirements of the managerial and leadership aspects of my work. … What led me back to school? You could call it a midlife crisis, but it was really just the desire to get a new educational base,” he said. DeMaio is concerned that many physicians view an M.B.A. as a panacea for all that ails them about the practice of medicine today. “A lot of physicians are going to get advanced degrees … with the thought that somehow it’s going to magically fix that for them by creating new career opportunities or by somehow changing their participation in the health care delivery enterprise,” he said. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. “There’s a real misperception that having an M.B.A. makes you a precious commodity as a physician, and the reality is that it doesn’t,” said DeMaio. Benefits of an M.B.A. Still, physicians looking to climb the career ladder may wonder if M.B.A.s are a must for certain positions. “In a lot of cases, they are, but in a lot of cases, they aren’t,” said Kurt Mosley, vice president of business development for Merritt, Hawkins & Associates. And in some cases, perhaps an M.B.A. should be required, but isn’t. For example, it’s not uncommon for hospitals to appoint their top physician as CEO. A good doctor, however, does not necessarily make a good businessman or businesswoman. “I think where things fall through is the financial part … that’s what the M.B.A. does teach,” Mosley said. Another valuable component of a business education is that it teaches “people skills,” as well as financial skills. “It teaches you the personalities of business, and I think that’s what doctors need to learn,” Mosley continued. “An M.B.A. teaches you how to tell people, ‘We can’t get a new MRI machine because we don’t have the money.’” Because a lot of physicians place more trust in their fellow physicians when it comes to decisions affecting their practice, sometimes bringing a doctor with an M.B.A. into a leadership role makes sense, said Mosley. Many hospitals and practices look favorably on M.D./M.B.A.s because they feel these physicians can be groomed for leadership roles within the organization. In some cases, noted Mosley, “mentoring could provide sufficient education or experience” in lieu of an M.B.A. Regardless of whether an employer requires an M.B.A., having one can set a physician apart from other job candidates. “It makes that physician more marketable,” said Mosley. Which program is right for you? Not all M.B.A. programs are alike. There are combined M.D./M.B.A. programs; there are programs geared specifically toward health care professionals; and there are others aimed at a general business audience. The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) makes a distinction between “generic” and “differentiated” M.B.A. programs. ACHE recommends looking for accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). You can find a list of accredited health care management programs on the CAHME Web site, www.cahmeweb.org. Traditional M.B.A. programs at most universities require a two-year full-time commitment. Many schools also offer an executive M.B.A. option, with classes in the evening, weekends or online. The physician executive M.B.A. program at UT is unique in that the one-year program combines real-time online participation with four one-week residency programs onsite, said Stahl. Some topics are common to all M.B.A. programs, such as accounting, business law, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, management, marketing, operations, statistics and strategy. But in programs specializing in health care, students will find that the majority of the applications and case studies are specific to the health care industry. The UT program assigns each student a year-long project that uses an aspect of that person’s work environment — be it a hospital, clinic or practice — as a real-life case study, said Stahl. “Therein, I think you’ll see a difference from what I call a ‘generic M.B.A.’ Go to Wharton for the best financial education in the world … go to MIT for the best manufacturing-oriented M.B.A. … Kellogg in Chicago for marketing M.B.A.s. The focus of this degree is application in health care with the concepts and tools of all those common body of knowledge topics that you see in any M.B.A.” DeMaio acknowledged that he’s probably an anomaly among his peers: in the midst of a high-powered clinical career that he loved — running a high-risk perinatal/neonatal program at a large community hospital in Pennsylvania — he decided to return to his alma mater to get his M.B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “I had a ball,” said DeMaio, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and once dreamed of writing children’s books. “The clinical side of me ended up manifesting itself in many ways in my business education and now in my business life. As a critical care physician, there’s a certain fearlessness that you’ve got to have in order to do your work. When someone drops a 1 1/2-lb. sick, premature baby in front of you at 3 a.m., you can’t equivocate about what to do; you’ve just got to do,” he said. In business as in medicine, he noted, it’s often necessary to make quick decisions based on incomplete information and uncertainty. For DeMaio, pursuing an M.B.A. was the next step in a life characterized by a love of learning. “I didn’t want to go to an M.B.A. program where there were going to be a lot of other doctors,” he said. “Part of the education was being in the mix with people who’d been out there in environments I knew nothing about. I learned so much from them.” Life after business school Today, DeMaio is doing something he never imagined. As president of Cadence, LLC, a health care strategy consultancy, he works with clients, such as breastcancer.org, on business development and marketing communications strategy. He credits his Wharton education with enriching his view of the world. To other physicians, considering an M.B.A., he said, “If you want to fundamentally transform yourself — or you really want the real breadth of experience that a business education can give you — I’d say go for a traditional M.B.A. program. If you’re trying to acquire a new war chest of knowledge to tap into to do your job better as a clinician, then I say go for one of the health care-oriented M.B.A. programs.” Of course, an M.B.A. isn’t everything. As Mosley said, “There are a lot of physicians doing excellent leadership work within hospitals, clinics and health care entities, regardless of having an M.B.A. … and Lord knows, we need leadership in health care.”
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