The MBA vs. MHA

By: Neil Pithadia

Serving under the North Texas American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) chapter has allowed me to work with a lot of young healthcare professionals looking to emerge into healthcare management.  By far, the number one question I get from young professionals is, “would you suggest an MBA or an MHA?”  This question has loomed over young professionals for the last few years as there are several new products of healthcare-focused MBAs.  This is a great question.

The skills that a post-graduate MHA or MBA acquires through their curriculum will be crucial moving forward with increasing complexities of population health, quality, efficiency and finance.  However, this is not enough.  The MBA/MHA is no longer a competitive advantage, the days where the MBA/MHA differentiated you against the competition for healthcare management is long gone.  It is now a necessity.  Those looking to get into healthcare administration will find a sector filled with bright talented post-graduates.  Therefore, I tell young professionals that either will do, but in order to truly have a competitive edge amongst your cohort, you need not ask MBA or MHA, rather you should be asking, “tell me about postgraduate administrative fellowships.”

For those not familiar with postgraduate administrative fellowships, these programs enable young professionals in the field access to senior-leadership revealing real-world scenarios and understanding of corporate, hospital and clinic-based operations.  In addition, it allows aspiring leaders to develop leadership styles and skills as well as personal coaching with a senior mentor.

Most of these fellowships condense several years of management into a 1-2 year program.  There is a much needed push for developing competent and effective healthcare leaders.  Several organizations out there are actively looking to develop and cultivate young talent into their organization’s leadership team.   Usually these programs fall into categories like financial, operational, compliance, etc.   These programs benefit from getting fresh ideas from upcoming leaders and are often fairly competitive.  Thus critical for those interested in pursuing an Administrative Fellowship is the ability to be mobile.

If you’re at a point in your career where you are beyond a fellowship, it is still critical to find the right mentor or preceptor.  A mentor will enable you to condense a long period of experience into something more tangible.  They can help you develop your career goals while exposing you to weaknesses in your skill-set.  You owe it to yourself and the mentor to do your due diligence.  Critical is finding the right person with a solid track-record of working with professionals and more importantly has a matching personality.  I live by the mantra, mentor under someone you would want to work for, not necessarily what their title is.

There are tools out there to help you determine if the mentor-to-be is someone that is on your wavelength.   Things such as the Myers-Briggs test or the personality colors test is a good reference (there are free examples of the MBTI exam online) to see if your mentor and you share similar values.  After all, if your values are not aligned, you will not only waste the other person’s time, but more importantly you will adopt leadership styles that are not innate and that can lead to mechanical and forced leadership.

So to summarize, young professionals need to get over the hump of an MBA vs. an MHA.  You need to be more focused on beyond the postgraduate degree and the Administrative Fellowship is a great vehicle to jump-start your career.  A quick search in Google for “administrative fellowship healthcare” will yield several examples such as Mayo, Emory, listings through the ACHE.  All great places to start.

http://www.ache.org/postgrad/splash.cfm

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