How successful without residency?

[MS05']

I know there are a slew of MD/MBA programs out there and some people choose to do one at a time (in whatever order), but I writing to ask if those who do not do a residency are as successful/marketable.

What could one do without the residency training and a MD/MBA?

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[Primate]

I think that medical students think that they will immediately be identified as special because they were smart enough to get into med school. They are unaware that there are a lot of VERY smart people who happen not to be interested in medicine who took other paths and went to B school.

That's soooo true. There's this odd belief that med students are SMARTER than MBA students (the MBA being only about shaking hands and schmoozing). Smart? Yes. Smarter? Not in my experience (I'm quite sure many will disagree, but in my data set it's largely true).

I also agree with the rest of the post. Useful, but not the ticket to ulimited opportunity outside of medicine that many graduating seniors think.

P

 

[deltamed]

I find top MBA students extremely smart but there are so many mediocre schools out there now that I feel the degree has been somwhat devalued. In my opinion, anyone that can get into undergrad can go to an mba program without much problem. On the other hand there are many that just *can't* get into medical school. On the subject of medical students being smarter, I guess its just how you define smarter. An MD requires a lot more raw knowledge than an MBA (I've seen plenty of MBAs who study/work about 2-4 hours a week whereas a typical medical student will study for 4-6 hours a day) albeit in vastly different areas. Perhaps MBAs are smarter because they get a payoff sooner and don't subject themselves to unnecessary pain

That's soooo true. There's this odd belief that med students are SMARTER than MBA students (the MBA being only about shaking hands and schmoozing). Smart? Yes. Smarter? Not in my experience (I'm quite sure many will disagree, but in my data set it's largely true).

I also agree with the rest of the post. Useful, but not the ticket to ulimited opportunity outside of medicine that many graduating seniors think.

P

 

[mshheaddoc]

There's this odd belief that med students are SMARTER than MBA students (the MBA being only about shaking hands and schmoozing). Smart? Yes. Smarter? Not in my experience (I'm quite sure many will disagree, but in my data set it's largely true).

I tend to agree with you on this one for one reason. They are different degrees and different ways of thinking. Case in point ... My friend, a 4th year med student, took off 4th year to go for her MBA. She is a smart girl and struggled with the GMAT. Totally different way of thinking for her. She has known the sciences her whole life, did great on the verbal, struggled with quantative. In classes, she goes full time and pretty much has to spend all day teaching herself the information (this also is a flaw in the program she's in but that is a whole different story).

I know alot of med students, law students, and MBA students. Law school is a different way of thinking from MBA, which is different from medical school. Yes it maybe harder to get into law and medical program, and the actual value of MBA is in question, but it is what you get out of it. I have learned many different critical thinking skills in my grad program which I was not taught in undergrad and now have a better picture of the "big" picture in business. I do not compare myself in different ways with med, law, and MBA students. Actually most MBA students in my program have different masters degrees as well. Very diverse crowd. Grad school is hard wherever you go ... You have to have the right mentality to go to grad school period. No need to start the battle of who's smarter than who. My MBA doesn't qualify me to be a doctor or a lawyer, so why compare?


Oh and to the OP about residency. I have my own opinions on this, and people who skip residency. Some people have reasons to. I know someone with their PharmD who went to med school and doesn't want to practice, no residency for him, but he's going to be using that learning skill set. I believe you should be required to at least have some residency to practice skills learned. You do not come out of school a doctor and I find people who assume that and represent that misleading. It is an acquired skill for the most part if you think about it. If you are just going it for the business, you would be better getting clinical experience and just getting your MBA. Yes having the additional two letters on your name might give you the appearance of authority, but you might get condemned by your peers due to your lack of actual experience in the "healthcare realm" as a true doctor. But hey, it ultimately up to you and that is your choice. People do both. I would like to get into administration as well as policy but I want to practice as well. Everyone has different goals and different ways to attain them. I just find the price of med school a little too steep NOT to practice, but that is just my current experience with it.

 

[ortho-mdmba]

Originally Posted by flindophile

I think that medical students think that they will immediately be identified as special because they were smart enough to get into med school. They are unaware that there are a lot of VERY smart people who happen not to be interested in medicine who took other paths and went to B school.

Let's just say I have been appropriately humbled by the level of intelligence and accomplishments of my MBA classmates whom I find to be more impressive than most, not all, of my medical school classmates.

At this level, perhaps what flags medical students as special is the commitment to such an arduous, narrow path when there is obviously many other "easier" and more flexible paths. Many of my classmates in the healthcare mgmt program actually took the MCAT in college and scored quite competitively before deciding not to pursue that path. The captain of our soccer club who was varsity player at Stanford (drafted by MLS) has a 3.99 GPA in Genetics, scored >40 on MCAT. So contrary to popular believe, they are not medschool rejects.

A brief anecdote- I was asked to join a team searching for business opportunities in HC and they wanted to know how Medicare would affect their business. During the first meeting, each of them brought in the Medicare Prescription bill (several hundred pages) highlighted with notes on the side. One started, we know you've probably read this a million times already but can you help us with some areas??? I said I hadn't read it and they were all quite surprised. Why would a doc whose life is affected greatly by Medicare not read such a significant bill? The bill actually affects most aspects of Medicare, not just prescriptions. The other said, "that's why docs get f**ked over, everytime".

 

[Primate]

A bit off topic, but.... One of my standard rants is about how physicians are so very poor at organizing themselves. Here is a group of very intelligent (mostly), hard working (mostly), high functioning (mostly) people who seem content to let others decide their fate. When someone (me, mostly it seems) suggests that physicians should as a group be more involved in things like policy, management, law, etc., others (mostly) get on some sort of bizarre moral high horse and decry these impure dalliances. It's almost as if they think medicine should be priveledged and not subject to the same forces that shape EVERYTHING else in the world (you guessed it - mostly). Perhaps so, but it is not so. Getting docs to take care of themselves instead of others is like herding cats. I think some of it is 2/2 their being independent types (even in a group practice or academics, how many docs actually work WITH another doc on a patient - not just in the same practice or department?).

Oh well.

P