The rapid growth of MD/MBA programs: are they worth it.

As the need for management skills for physicians becomes ever more evident, the number of MD/MBA programs has doubled in the past decade. About 65 dual-degree programs are offered in the United States, with more on the way. At the annual meeting of Association of MD/MBA Programs last year, 48 universities from three countries were represented. Maria Young Chandler, MD, MBA, the association’s founder and president, said three medical schools sent representatives to the conference to learn how to add an MBA degree to their curriculum. “I have been pushing for the past two years to get all U.S. medical students to be able to have the opportunity to get the dual degree if they want it,” said Chandler, the MD/ MBA faculty advisor and associate professor at University of CaliforniaIrvine’s College of Medicine. The MD/MBA programs association was started in 1997 when only a handful of medical schools offered the dual degree. It gained status as a 501c3 non-profit organization in 2008. Now more than half of the nation’s 133 accredited medical schools allow students to simultaneously pursue the two degrees. Moreover, two Canadian medical schools offer the MD/ MBA, and the Karolinska Institutet, a medical school in Stockholm, is working to develop a dual-degree program. Overall MD/MBA enrollment numbers are not available, but the dual degree is gaining traction across the country. At UC-Irvine, Chandler reports that about 15 percent of the students entering medical school each year enroll in its fiveyear MD/MBA program, offered in conjunction with UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business. That proportion is higher than most schools, she said, in part because the West Coast has fewer dual-degree programs than the East Coast. One of the most prolific programs is the MD/MBA in health management offered by Tufts University School of Medicine and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Marcia Boumil, program director, said between six and 15 students enroll in the dual-degree program each year.