What is the ROI on your MBA?

There is little data on how an MD/MBA impacts physician career progression and transitioning.

I recently posted a straw poll on LinkedIn to get some "back of the envelope" (n=62) data.

Question: If you are an MD/DO/MBBS, did you make a non-clinical career transition after you got your MBA, either before, during, or after medical school?

Here are the results:

Yes

45%

No

55%

Just over 60% of medical schools now offer dual MD-MBA programs, more than twice the number two decades ago, a recent study shows. And researchers estimate the number of dual-degree graduates has nearly tripled. Still, it’s difficult to know exactly how many physicians now have business degrees. While the medical school students who simultaneously earned both a medical and business degree represent almost 1% of the roughly 28,000 medical school students who graduate each year, that doesn’t include physicians who later go back to school to pursue an executive MBA.

Can you really learn entrepreneurship in school?

Here's my take:

1. The business of medicine should be taught in professional schools, medical schools and during residency training. Most MD/MBA programs should be terminated.
2. There are four main physician customer segments: Those who want to 1) supplement their clinical activities, 2) assume medical administrative roles, 3) pursue medical non-clinical roles and opportunities, like creating a company or other entrepreneurial role, 4) leave sick care to do something else outside of medicine.
3. The learning objectives and curriculum should be more specific to address the different needs.
4. Whether MD/MBAs continue in clinical practice or assume non-clinical roles is essentially a coin toss, with slightly more not transitioning out of clinical care. But did the training impact the sextuple aims positively or negatively?
5. We need better longitudinal outcome measurements
6. We need better data to help applicants make a more informed choice as to which program better suites their needs and objectives and other variables like structure, process, focus, cost and experience
7. Rethink who pays. In the past, many employers paid for employees to get an MBA entirely or in part. Now that almost three quarters of doctors are employed by corporations or large health systems, instead of medical students assuming more debt to get an MBA during medical school, the costs should be borne by their employer as a professional development benefit. Doing so would focus on business schools delivering value to not just the students, but to their employers as well.
8. New data show that a substantial number of MBA candidates are being paid by their employers to pursue a pricey graduate business education, but are there strings attached?
9. Here’s exactly how much an MBA increases your salary, by industry. What about sick care?
10. What do MD. MBA students need to know about artificial intelligence? Are they learning it in medical school or business school? How will we prevent technomedics from making inequities worse?
11. How should we measure not just the income cost/benefits, but the intangible cost/benefits as well?
12. How do we reconcile the conflicts between the culture of the business of medicine and the practice of medicine in the age of AI?

In his book, "For Profit: A History of Capitalism", law professor William Magnuson offer this stakeholder tool kit:

Don't overthrow the Republic

Think long term

Share with shareholders

Compete, but fairly

Treat your workers right

Don't destroy the planet

Don't take all the pie for yourself

Don't move too fast or break too many things...like the bank or yourself

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack