Making the Rounds with the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

KIRK KERKORIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UNLV

Making the Rounds

May 25, 2021 Issue 282

Friends & Colleagues,

I’ll never forget 2005, the year Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It caused over 1800 deaths and $125 billion in damages. It also caused the Tulane University School of Medicine, where I was then a senior associate dean, to move to the Texas Medical Center in Houston, 350 miles away, for a year. The move of 800 students and faculty was greatly aided by the gracious support of Dr. Michael DeBakey, a pioneering heart surgeon, a graduate of the Tulane University School of Medicine and chancellor emeritus at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine. Apartments were found near the medical center and some incredibly compassionate local students and faculty made rooms available. Our students were still taught by Tulane faculty using the Tulane curriculum even as they took basic science courses at Baylor. Other students did clinical rotations in nearby teaching hospitals in Houston, Galveston and Temple, Texas. While the move worked, I realized how much better it could have gone if I had had formal training in management. When we moved back to New Orleans, I put together our first MD/MBA dual degree program at Tulane. I had seen first hand how business principles can be useful in medicine. In today’s newsletter, we focus on UNLV’s first MD/MBA dual degree, which is open to students this fall.

Marc J. Kahn, M.D.

Dean, Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

Medicine By The Numbers

Colorectal Cancer

Excluding skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women in the United States.

The American Cancer Society estimates the number of colorectal cancer cases in the U.S. for 2021 are:

104,270 new cases of colon cancer
45,230 new cases of rectal cancer

In the U.S. the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer is about 1 in 23 (4.3%) for men and 1 in 25 (4.0%) for women.

When combining colorectal deaths of men and women in the U.S., it is the second most common cause of cancer deaths. It’s expected to cause about 52,980 deaths during 2021.

Source: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-statistics.html

Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

Announces MD/MBA Program

The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV will start offering the MD/MBA program this fall, to be completed in a five-year time period, joining half of the nation's 143 allopathic schools that offer the dual degree.

Daniel Aynlender at his UCLA Undergraduate Commencement

When Daniel Aynlender talked earlier this month with Dr. Marc J. Kahn, dean of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, about the wisdom of a physician having a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, he was unaware that the day before their conversation, the UNLV administration announced the approval of a joint MD/MBA dual degree program to begin this fall.

“Just a lucky coincidence,” said Aynlender, who is finishing his first year of medical school.

What is not a coincidence, however, is a burgeoning interest by medical students across the country in pursuing an MBA. While the University of Pennsylvania was the first to establish an MD/MBA program in 1971, today about half of the nation’s 143 allopathic schools offer the dual degree. As Atlantic magazine pointed out in an article headlined, “The Rise of the MD/MBA Degree,” more than half of such programs began after the year 2000, with most offering the dual degree in a five-year time period, the time frame also selected by UNLV.

Aynlender, who coupled a science major with a minor in accounting as an undergraduate at UCLA, believes it is important for physicians to have financial and business knowledge. As Kahn talked with Aynlender, he said he was impressed with the medical student’s desire to better understand the business side of medicine.

With the U.S. spending nearly 18 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare, Kahn said he thinks “basic business skills are important to young physicians.” He suggests physicians need to better understand how to manage people, make or interpret financial models, manage strategically, and the role of healthcare venture capital. Today, he argues that many pressing challenges in healthcare are business problems, especially as the execution of managed care systems and the Affordable Care Act become even more involved.

Over the years, Kahn, who led the charge for the UNLV MD/MBA dual degree program, says physicians have abdicated their leadership roles in healthcare to those who just have business backgrounds. Profits, he says, too often have become separated from the humanity of healthcare. “The U.S. needs the humanity in medicine that physicians provide, as well as business principles for the country to become the leader in healthcare that we want it to be.”

At UNLV, participants in the dual degree program will go to the MBA training after their third-year medical rotations. That third year of patient care for medical students involves work experiences that can be brought to the business program, allowing a student to better see how a business background can be helpful to them in the future.

Aynlender is particularly interested in whether it’s best to get a joint MD/MBA degree or to obtain an MBA after practicing as a physician. Before he talked with Kahn, he saw on the dean’s Linkedin page that Kahn received his MBA well after he graduated from medical school.

"Because Las Vegas is becoming known for innovation, we want to develop medical students who are going to be in medical technology innovation. Having an MBA with an MD puts you in a good position to develop technologies for the future.”

Dr. Marc J. Kahn

Dean, Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

Kahn, then a senior associate dean at the Tulane University School of Medicine before becoming dean of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, told Aynlender that there are a number of positives to working on a dual degree now rather than waiting, as he did. Too often, he said, family and clinical responsibilities make it difficult to go back to school. “Often, you just don’t have time to do it,” he said.

Career opportunities can also blossom with a dual degree, said Kahn, who championed the dual MD/MBA degree at Tulane. “When you look at advertisements for leadership positions in healthcare, an MD and MBA is often recommended,” he said.

He said physician entrepreneurs are also helped by an MD/MBA. “They develop a technology and then are able to commercialize it...One of my former students developed a technology for obstetric patients. A couple of weeks before he graduated, he was offered several million dollars for his invention. Because Las Vegas is becoming known for innovation, we want to develop medical students who are going to be in medical technology innovation. Having an MBA with an MD puts you in a good position to develop technologies for the future.”

Kahn, who received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (now the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania) received his MBA from Tulane in 2010. He said it has really helped him work strategically, particularly when budget cuts are necessary. One example, he said, is that a called-for 5 percent budget cut probably should not be done across the board in medicine. “It may well be that there are some areas that should be cut 100 percent and others not at all...that’s strategic thinking. With an MBA you learn to think in a different way.”

At this point in medical school, Aynlender is thinking about specializing in psychiatry. But he knows that could change, as it often does as medical students rotate in various specialties during their training. He wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to hold a leadership position in healthcare, perhaps in hospital or clinic administration, where an MBA would be helpful.

Aynlender hasn’t decided yet whether to go for a dual degree or get an MBA later. Adding another year to schooling adds more cost, he pointed out. But scholarships could help with that and what an MBA adds to a career could make it pay for itself, Aynlender said. He also said what could hold him back from pursuing a dual degree is the desire to graduate from medical school with his class.

“I’m trying to convince some of my peers to join the dual program with me so we can graduate together,” he said. “It would be nice to be the first UNLV graduates of the dual degree MD/MBA program.”