Once again, I want to thank you guys for your feedback. My desire to learn more about the MD/MBA is due to my interest in the merger of medicine/business/policy as well -- I just don't know what that means for me yet. I will spend more time learning about the opportunities that an MD/MBA allows via this forum in addition to speaking to physicians who have gone this route.
Blais, do you know what you would want to do with your MBA?
Seriously, thank you all!
I have a bit of a background in business, so can fully appreciate what acumen in this field can offer professionals in most [seemingly unrelated] fields -- especially medicine. While the actual knowledge imparted by an undergrad/grad degree in business is certainly an asset, much of the value of the pursuit rests in
other facets of "the education". More specifically, teamwork skills will be developed, leadership qualities will be sharpened, big-picture thought processes will be adopted and a social network will be grown all in a fashion
greatly dissimilar to the experiences of the vanilla "biology major straight to med school, straight to residency, straight to practicing".
There's only so much utility that can carried over to "real life" from having your
only collegiate team/group work being in a science lab. If left in that vacuum, the functional development just isn't on par with the alternatives.
All that said, an mba is a rather
open-ended degree --
dissimilar to an MD/DO. One goes to medical school to gain the specific knowledge that will further them to becoming a medical doctor; one goes to business school to... become a, uhh, "business man"?
What is a "business man"? Whatever you want it to be.
I personally have very
broad interests, both inside and outside the classroom/workplace. This naturally led me to take an early interest in a medical specialty that is diverse and somewhat open-ended (in patient population, practice settings, scheduling, options for hiatus and opportunities outside "the clinic"). What I mean by "outside the clinic" is that I have aspirations to
not limit myself to sitting in my office from 9-5, 5 days/week, for 40 years. No, I can fully envision myself being open to the
prospect of consulting, working with others on the development of new medical devices, and/or VC. Likewise, I can fully envision myself as
growing averse to being a hospital-drone-doc and instead seeking positions of administration (whether that be department chair or on the hospital board of directors). A part of my entrepreneurial side really is
fascinated with the idea of setting up/opening/managing my own clinic (read: 10+ full-time employees) and serving our patients with technology in
new ways. I enjoy building organizations from the ground up and I think the ability to be one's own boss has a unique set of perks (along with its own set of headaches).
Now the interesting part is that, in reality, even when perusing the wide spectrum of my overly ambitious aspirations, I technically
do not need an MBA to accomplish
a single one of them (and it is for that reason that I mentioned earlier to keep your debt low). I'm not likely going to be sending in my application for a consulting gig at MBB, I don't personally need an MBA from Harvard, et al. Since my goals are aligned to be
complemented by the degree [rather than built upon it, such as for those seeking IB gigs on wallstreet], I'll be served just as well by getting an mba from an institution that
balances the issue of debt with reputation.
For me, it is simply a
hybrid of building a larger tool kit coupled with a personal
love for the subject matter. To satisfy those desires, I am willing to pay a bit -- just not too much... because like I mentioned earlier, the degree isn't exactly a
necessity; it's very hard to calculate any potential ROI for what I outlined above.
That's my thoughts at the moment, of course, they are subject to change...really, they are
open-ended.
