More physicians are pursuing executive MBA degrees rather than healthcare-specific programs to expose themselves to other industries and schools of thought, according to a report from Kaiser Health News and The Boston Globe.
Pioneering medical schools began offering joint MD/MBA programs in the late 1990s, and more than 50 percent of the country's medical schools now offer a combined program. But an increasing number of physicians, eager to learn new ways of thinking outside of healthcare, are opting for general executive MBA programs, according to the report. Many say they need more business training to better lead healthcare reform.
"Many physicians working in medical centers feel like prisoners of the hospital administration," Jonathan Lehrich, director of MIT Sloan School of Management's executive program in Boston, said in the report. "They're tired of being told, 'Well, you're the physician. You just go off and practice, and we'll make all the decisions.'"
MIT Sloan offers a 22-month executive MBA program. For the first time, students from the healthcare field outnumber those from any other industry, making up roughly 20 percent of the program's 2014 class. The chief of interventional cardiology at Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital enrolled in the program, noting that he does not attend class with "a room full of doctors, but with manufacturers and shipbuilders," according to the report.
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