Best Residency for Chief Medical Officer Position

[monty22]

I am currently an MD/MBA student, interested in doing healthcare administration as a long term career goal. I was wondering if the choice of medical residency affects the job outlook for CMO jobs.

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[oldfatman]

I am currently an MD/MBA student, interested in doing healthcare administration as a long term career goal. I was wondering if the choice of medical residency affects the job outlook for CMO jobs.

Hate to break it to you chap, but healthcare admin isn't exactly rocket science. You're setting the bar kind of low.

 

[inspirationmd]

I am currently an MD/MBA student, interested in doing healthcare administration as a long term career goal. I was wondering if the choice of medical residency affects the job outlook for CMO jobs.

I am interested in this as well. I think the key is to do something that is broad based and lends itself to scaling bak clinically as your admin duties increase but will also allow you exposure to working with a lot of different specialties to give you some "street cred". A pathologist, while important, is not likely to be taken seriously when he tells the Pediatricians they need to shape up their vaccine budget or the Hospitalists when he lectures them about LOS on Grandma who has nowhere to go. You need to have your finger on the pulse of clinical medicine while also being in a field that is in demand, generates revenue, that you like, and scaled back as previously stated.

I recommend EM, IM, Med/Peds, Peds, or FM. If you are dead set on a surgical field you must realize that a pay cut will occur as you transition to a likely lower paying admin job while you earn your cred with the suits regarding budgets, quality improvement, and saving/making the company cash.

I recommend reading a 3 part series by Alan S. Kaplan that came out in Physican Executive journal a few years ago called Climbing the ladder to CEO. Had a chance to talk to him and between that convo and the articles I am already getting admin experience as a resident. Also I recommend seeking out people who have the job you want and seeing the path they took. For example Dr. Kaplan has a very "googleable" career trajectory and is someone to aspire to. Also check out Dr. Troyen Brennan (CVS) and Dr. Kelvin Baggett, MD (Tenet).

I will say Pedigree seems kind of important as well. Don't know where you are but if you have it then that is great. Otherwise, you need to get it either via residency or fellowship or another degree. My plan is to become board certified in EM and IM (+/- Critical Care) and work as a ED doc and/or intensivist for some years before heading to a top tier MBA program and making the transition.

Good luck. Very few of us shoot for those heights. Don't let people discourage you but also keep in mind not all docs like admin so be selective about who you share your aspirations with outside of the relatively anonymous Internet.

 

[oldfatman]

Very few of us shoot for those heights. Don't let people discourage you but also keep in mind not all docs like admin so be selective about who you share your aspirations with outside of the relatively anonymous Internet.

Authority without leadership ability is meaningless. You should concentrate on leadership first.

 

[inspirationmd]

Authority without leadership ability is meaningless. You should concentrate on leadership first.

Agree. Leadership ability takes years to develop which is what I meant by earning "street cred" while working as a physician. However, the question was which type of residency will place you in a position to attain these positions once your work and leadership credentials are proven. I maintain something that has you in the trenches but can be scaled back as you get more admin responsibilities to build up to the CMO level is the best way to go.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16509400

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16615404

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16736626

 

[oldfatman]

Agree. Leadership ability takes years to develop which is what I meant by earning "street cred" while working as a physician. However, the question was which type of residency will place you in a position to attain these positions once your work and leadership credentials are proven. I maintain something that has you in the trenches but can be scaled back as you get more admin responsibilities to build up to the CMO level is the best way to go.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16509400

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16615404

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16736626

Nice article--worth reading. No offense, but I'd rather start my own business than "slurp my way up the inverted ice cream cone."