Using an MBA to Elevate Your Healthcare Career
One of the great things about a pharmacy career is options. And one of the great things about options is it gives you flexibility to find a job you enjoy. Now there’s work behind that and you have to put in the effort to actually figure out what you enjoy and what work is meaningful to you, but the possibilities are there.
One of the reasons I chose the pharmacy school I did was because it offered a dual PharmD/MBA program. The director of pharmacy at MUSC at the time, trailblazer that he was, saw the need and we were one of the first programs to offer it. In fact, I was in the first graduating class! Now I was also strategic. The world of medicine is a lot of waiting (a lot of education and a lot of experience), but I knew that based off of my lifelong interests, the MBA would be what I wanted to use someday.
I also knew that I wasn’t cut out for a residency, partly because my husband’s match process would have been the year after my match. The summer between my third and fourth years of pharmacy school, I met the love of my life and that was just the stage I was in at the time. I did evaluate residency, though because there was a lot of pressure at my pharmacy school to do so. But ultimately, that was not the direction I wanted to take.
Lastly, I have worked and consulted many pharmacists - many who are managers, and they always say, “they never taught me this in school”. Whether we like it or not, we have to deal with budgets, tracking reimbursement and managing people. An advanced degree gives you those tools.
How do you get your MBA?
There are many different ways, really, and you can do it at any time. In fact, one of my MBA professors argued that everyone should work for 3-5 years before they pursue this advanced education with the reasoning being that they would better be able to apply the knowledge they learned. I know IV room pharmacists who have gotten the degree, pharmacy managers who were working on it, and I even know a director of pharmacy who just finished his program!
Some schools offer a dual program
Some residency programs offer it or a MHA in tandem with the HSPA residency
Some jobs will pay for at least part of it after you’ve been at the company for a certain amount of time
You can take night or online classes at a college nearby
This is typically a two year program depending on the pace you go and I would recommend going to the best program that you can get into or the best college regionally.
How it can elevate your pharmacy career
What can you do with a dual degree? Most people that I know with this degree are either pursuing a leadership position or are a current manager trying to boost their skills. The higher you go, the more this will help and it will also set you apart from other people. I got asked in all my interviews about my MBA, what I was doing with it, what I planned to do with it, etc…
You can also use this to work in revenue cycle, hospital administration, consulting, and industry. It’s even immensely helpful if you want to start your own business. Not only does it add a little credibility, it gives you the financial tools to succeed. Depending on how you market yourself, it can fit into many career paths.
MBA vs MHA
Choosing between getting a MBA or MHA depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to be a director of a pharmacy, either is good. Many hospital administrators have an MHA and many are FACHE certified (we can discuss that later). If your career goals are broader or outside of traditional pharmacy, then I would recommend an MBA as that would help you on an industry path or in a corporate setting. Really, they are both great options depending on where you want to go in your career.