Second Opinion

While I was working with private physicians during my third year of medical school, I became keenly aware of the difficulty of managing a modern physician practice. Often my attending physicians and I would spend more time discussing the business or management problems of the practice than we did discussing daily medical issues.

Dealing with slow-paying insurance companies and managed health care plans seemed to place enormous stresses on these physicians.

Thus, my decision to enroll in the M.D.-M.B.A. program at UofL's School of Medicine and College of Business and Public Administration was driven by my interest in broadening my understanding of the business world and by what I felt was a growing trend -- the integration of business and medicine.

Traditionally, medicine has distanced itself from business thought; however, the discipline no longer has the luxury to continue to do so.

The typical physician-M.B.A. experience centers around practicing physicians who seek M.B.A.s to enhance their leadership skills or broaden the depth of their business understanding. These physicians take significant time from their practices and families to travel on weekends to Chicago, New York or Atlanta to complete an M.B.A. in health care. The educational tools they gain are then incorporated into their traditional medical business habits.

Conversely, completing an M.B.A. program at the beginning of a medical career, as I have done, provides a different perspective -- the knowledge becomes incorporated into the foundation of a physician's medical thinking.

Economics, management, accounting and finance are facets of my education to which I had no previous exposure. Now, however, I have an educational experience that provides an additional set of tools for my career.

The question is: How can we be effective, caring physicians while being economically responsible? Also: How can we employ business principles and strategy to improve medicine in the 21st Century?

During my M.B.A. training, I had the opportunity to study the impact of technology on business and the economy and to see the potential for its use for the practicing physician.

This led me to found Healthcoast.com, a company dedicated to the development of Internet-related tools for physician practices. Through the use of a well-managed group website with approved medical information, on-line forms and perhaps even interactive scheduling, a physician practice can provide an additional mechanism to help patients develop a stronger relationship with their physicians.

Even a small increase in patient satisfaction will go far in strengthening the much-eroded patient-physician interaction. The potential of the Internet for medicine has not yet been fully realized, and the utility for the physician practice is significant.

The effective physician of the future must be equipped not only with a solid understanding of the modern practice of medicine, but also with a basic foundation of the business principles that govern the productivity of humanity.

The future leaders of medicine are likely to grapple with the economic realities of modern medicine and the appropriate allocation of our scarce resources.

An M.B.A. focused on health care provides an opportunity for others in medicine to conveniently equip themselves with a new understanding of human endeavor and how we in medicine must adapt to fulfill our purpose.

Stephen J. Behnke, M.D., is a 2000 graduate of the University of Louisville School of Medicine who just completed a master's degree in business administration from UofL's College of Business and Public Administration. He currently is a resident in internal medicine at the University of Louisville.