MD/MBA useful for future career as medical advisory or chief medical officor?

[gomernation]

Hi all,

Can anyone here provide insight into 5-year MD/MBA programs? My school offers one that is fully accredited and would hypothetically take place between third and fourth year with a cost of approximately $40-50K. I am interested in pursuing a career as a clinician who runs trials for and is heavily involved in drug and device development. And maybe (eventually) hospital management.

Name brand does not mean much to me though I appreciate that much of the value of an MBA lies in the network and not the education. One caveat is I am pursuing a competitive surgical specialty. Therefore the extra year may provide additional time benefit to strengthen my residency app, do research, build stronger connections with home program faculty etc.

I know many current and former medical students have are pursuing such programs and wanted to learn about past experiences if possible. Thanks!

-gomernation

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[D P356]

It will change the way you think concerning business aspects of practice. Accounting, marketing, economics and finance are strong courses within a program. There are some more abstract courses which I didn’t really find as applicable.
I also have a relative that told me his MBA kept his resume in the stack when new positions opened.

 

[GoSpursGo]

MBA may help with the eventual goal of hospital admin. I am not confident it really helps with running trials or applying for IND/IDEs. When applying for those you really need a strong understanding of the science and a clear idea of how to conduct high quality clinical trials.

To that extent, you may do better to just take a standard research year and undertake a serious wet lab project while simultaneously banging out some of those standard med student clinical pubs. Later in residency/fellowship, some programs have specialized tracks which would allow you to get an MS in clinical research and these kinds of programs would get you formal training in clinical trial design. THIS is the kind of experience that may really elevate you as a trialist, and your program would likely pay for or subsidize the cost of the program.

Not saying you shouldn’t do the MBA, it certainly has its uses, but these are my thoughts based on your articulated goals