I am starting medical school this fall and i think EM is one of the fields that I could see myself enjoying. After talking with few of my friends already in medical school, who are also interested in EM, it seems to me that MBAs are very popular in this field. Why is the MD/MBA joint program so common among people going into EM. Why give up a year of attending salary while attending business school. Is this because they want to start their own private practice group or something? Do you really need an MBA to set up a private practice. Seems to me it would be cheaper and more efficient to just hire a consultant who actually specializes in that stuff and could probably do it much better than a physician who completed a MBA in one year without any actual business experience.
From my limited observation most of the successful private practice guys and partners don't seem to have a MBA. I've also heard about guys getting a MBA to set up urgent care centers. What exactly does this entail? Do you really need an MBA to do this stuff?
I'm just a med student, but here's my 2c -- the two big things I've seen as far as MD/MBA EM docs:
1) many EM docs are in a large group which contracts with the hospital(s), so there's a fair amount of business that goes into contracting -- things like Press-Ganey scores, % collections, etc. being an EM doc with an MBA can put you in a position to help run the business side of the physician group. for the physician personally, it usually means an increase in salary (albeit not a big one) and also an increase in marketability.
2) another thing that I've seen several EM docs involved in is hospital admin -- something like a VPMA/S (vice president of medical affairs/services) position. ER docs are hospital-based and tend to have easier schedules than most (12 12h shifts a month is full time for our group), so they're in a position to work closely with hospital administration and possibly take on an administrative role themselves. I was involved with the ER at Georgetown Hospital (DC) and one of the ER docs was the associate medical director of the hospital.
In general, I think EM is probably the 3rd most common specialty to fill VPMA-style positions after IM and pulm/CCM, so that may be a part.
There are definitely some docs interested in medical informatics, innovation / device development, opening urgent care centers, etc., but I feel like those are in the minority in my experience. Again, though, I'm a medical student -- so take that with a grain of salt. Either way, I think that a one-year MBA can be a good decision.
You may not make up one year of attending-level salary, but there's also possibility you will -- if you get an extra 15% of your salary to do some administrative work, you'd recoup that one year loss (+ tuition) in less than 10 years. That said, I don't think income potential is a good reason to do the MBA, since there are areas of clinical medicine which offer much higher earning potential. I think it's something to do if you're interested in the work (and possibility to increase marketability of you're heading to a very competitive market).
