The correlation between strong clinical leadership and furtherance across various healthcare measures – patient experience, outcomes, organisational performance, staff engagement and overall care quality – has generated considerable interest nowadays. By contrast, effectual healthcare management remains under-celebrated, as most clinicians acquire minimal management training. As the healthcare architecture imbibes increasing complexity, there is an expanding implication that clinicians should explicitly obtain capability in subjects which are habitually considered non-clinical, counting financial and operational management, human resources and service transformation, to preferably understand healthcare as both system and industry, and best navigate, lead and ameliorate services for patients.

For example, opportunities for UK medical students to build rudimentary skills in these areas are constricted. Endeavours to incorporate general leadership themes into core curricula have attained mixed reception, and little robust evidence which deputes that existing approaches have enhanced leadership development. A restricted number of medical schools offer intercalated bachelor degrees in management principles, conferring comparable competency to undergraduate science. 

The MD/MBA pathway is well established in the United States. Medical students may pursue traditional MBA cohorts, constituting diverse employment backgrounds, to graduate with a widened appreciation of healthcare amid other sectors. In healthcare, the potentiality to communicate with clinical and non-clinical colleagues in their respective languages, while determining strategic, operational and financial objectives in accordance to the patient priorities, informed by clinical experience, seems particularly valued.

The functionality and effect of MBA in physicians’ career:

Throughout the past twenty-five years, the health-care industry has experienced much scrutiny and change, ensuing a very different medical landscape and one that is currently developing. In an attempt to restraint skyrocketing health-care costs, improve access and coherence, and reduce medical errors, health-care reform has been a topic of every presidential election for the past fifteen years. Since the early 1990s, a plethora of mergers, acquisitions, and breakups has transpired in major health-care systems throughout the world.

Due to the ever-changing healthcare landscape, it has become growingly essential for doctors to understand the healthcare system holistically. Thus, some medical schools, in an effort to prepare more well-rounded physicians, have adopted introductory business courses into their curricula. To successfully navigate all the opportunities that exist today, it is important for trainees and practitioners interested in pursuing an MBA to understand how the degree can affect their future career prospects.

The Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) Education

A Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) is extensively contemplated to be the apotheosis of business education. Physicians with an MBA means having the business acumen needed to analyze the healthcare system holistically. Additionally, an MBA education comprises the maturing of strong communication and leadership skills, which are equally appropriate to the operating room as they are the boardroom.

Stigma Against MD/MBA Education

In the past, an education in management was pondered irrelevant to the practice of medicine and excellent medical knowledge was above reproach. In fact, for many years and to an extent still at present, a stigma existed against physicians who pursued business education. This is because medicine, at its core, is engrossed in the good of the patient while business is focused on the good of the company. Physician-MBAs were thought to have iniquitous objectives and denounced for being overly concerned with monetary gain. 

Changing Perspectives on MD/MBA Education

One recent study showed that MD/MBA graduates have the perspectives of considering themselves as doctors first and generally act in approbation of the patient. According to a survey done by Parekh and Singh, the primary inducements for pursuing an MBA include swotting the business aspects of the health-care system (67%), gaining a more interesting job (52%), and pulling through better in a new system (47%).

Advantages reported by physician-MBAs include evaluating systems operations and enacting improvements, learning how to be an effective leader, apprehending financial principles, working within a team, constructive negotiations, career acceleration, professional flexibility, reliability in multidisciplinary domains, management skills, communication skills, and decision-making skills. Evidence suggests that physicians- MBAs were conclusively affected by their MBA education and would suggest it to other physicians. 

Career options

Clinical research career opportunities that require or prefer an MBA may include:

• Clinical research analyst

• Research associate

• Research manager

• Researcher or a professor

• Clinical Research Coordinator

• Marketing manager

Today, the healthcare system is compounded to be navigated inherently. Due to growing economically-driven pressure and external evaluation, physicians can no longer solely count on their medical knowledge to optimize their capability to practice medicine. Therefore, physicians are progressively looking to gain concrete business skills to navigate the healthcare landscape and maintain their autonomy. Through an MBA education, physicians seek to obtain not only basic knowledge of core business concepts, but also impalpable growth in skills such as leadership and team-building. These skills will not only construct them to become health system leaders, but also augment their daily clinical communication skills and ability to lead healthcare teams.

If you are looking to kick-start a career in this field, you should opt for an MBA in Clinical Research in RUSHFORD Business School, Switzerland. This extensive course mainly covers all the fundamental concepts of health management, such as leadership and decision making, strategy in healthcare management, operations management and health economics. To know more about the course please visit the website: www.rushford.ch