Jeff Charis-Carlson , jcharisc@press-citizen.com Published 5:20 p.m. CT Feb. 14, 2017 | Updated 15 hours ago
University of Iowa professor John Murry leads a seminar for medical school students at the Beisner Auditorium in the Bowen Science Building on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017.(Photo: David Scrivner / Iowa City Press-Citizen)Buy Photo
What do the business histories of greeting cards and filtered water have to do with the practice of medicine?
Both help explain to future physicians how, when thinking about the future of medicine, they need to look beyond the limited field of their own expertise.
In the 1990s, for example, Hallmark and American Greetings discovered they had a lot less to worry about from each others market share than they did from their customers deciding to call each other, rather than send cards, becauseof the dropping costs of long distance.
The business planners for Britaand PUR water filters, likewise, have less to gain from poaching each others customers than they do from drawing clients the vast majority of people who get their water right from the tap.
Those are just two of many examples offered Saturday by John Murry, a marketing professor from the University of Iowas Tippie College of Business, to about 50 students from UIs Carver College of Medicine.
You are going to find yourself competing with people who look different than you, Murry told the students, shortly before the mornings first break.
Murrys marketing presentation was part of a half-day seminar designed to get the future internists, ophthalmologists, urologists and undecided specialists thinking about the various business conundrums they will face throughout their careers.
We need people who not only understand medicine and how to take care of patients but who also have a population health skill set and a business skill set, said Alan Reed, a professor of surgery and director of the Organ Transplant Center at UI Hospitals and Clinics. People who know how to get data from a financial statement and put that information to good use.
When Reed graduated medical school in the 1980s, he said physicians had really punted on being leaders in health care.
University of Iowa professor John Murry leads a seminar for medical school students at the Beisner Auditorium in the Bowen Science Building on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017.(Photo: David Scrivner / Iowa City Press-Citizen)
Slowly but surely, physician leadership is becoming a more important part of the health care landscape, he said, pointing to the expansion of UIHC under the physician leadership of Jean Robillard, a professor of pediatrics and UI's outgoing vice president for medical affairs.
Reed went back to school himself and earned an MBA from UI in 2012.
It opened up a whole new avenue for me, he said.
So when a handful of medical students came to Reed asking for more exposure to business case studies, he worked with them to develop a new, three-year distinction track program to offer to medical students on a continual basis.
We thought these concepts were important and werent as represented as much as we would like them to be, said Charlie Paul, a fourth-year medical student who majored in finance as an undergraduate.
Paul said and his colleagues had kicked around various ideas, but they eventually settled on the quarterly, half-day seminar as a way to fit the sessions into medical students' busy schedules. The Carver College of Medicine already offers a few distinction track options for students, so the format would be sustainable year after year.
This isnt an MBA; it's not an advanced degree, Paul said. But as Dr. Reed says, it whets everyones appetite. It exposes students to these concepts and provides resources for reading more about them and for getting involved with larger projects.
Paul also stresses that the focus of the class isnt on treating individual patients as some sort of business commodity; its about preparing doctors for the business decisions they will have to make.
Those are separate and both very different and challenging problems of the health care industry, Paul said. You cant sacrifice patient care for the bottom line, but you also do yourself a disservice if youre not thinking about how to keep the lights on and how to keep patients happy. Its not in the patients best interest to not having the operating room running efficiently and on time.
In addition to Saturdays discussion of marketing, previous half-day seminars have focused on e-health and managerial accounting.
Instead of just learning how to practice medicine from a purely science- and patient-based point of view, Im also learning about how to consider the other external factors that are going to shape and influence and really dictate the way that I practice medicine, said Kelsey Adler, a first-year medical student from the Chicago area.
Medical school students follow along as University of Iowa professor John Murry holds a seminar at the Beisner Auditorium in the Bowen Science Building on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017.(Photo: David Scrivner / Iowa City Press-Citizen)
The lesson Adler learned Saturday, she said, was to keep her eyes on those external forces.
You cannot just make decisions on your own experience, with only the perspective you have from your professional background, Alder said.
Lizzy Gerdis, a third-year medical student from Waukee, said she learned much from the previous seminars, but she arrived Saturday morning questioning whether a four-hour discussion of marketing would be helpful for her.
Her opinion changed as soon as Murry began his presentation.
I guess sometimes I dont really know what Ill be interested in until Im here, Gerdis said.
Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffCharis.
Read or Share this story: http://icp-c.com/2lN8ZEW
Read more:
UI teaching future doctors the business of medicine - Iowa City Press Citizen
- Yes, But. The Annotated Atlantic. - November 7th, 2009 [November 7th, 2009]
- Health Insurance Benefit Costs by Region - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- For an Operator, Please Press... - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Pollyanna With a Pen: Maine Governor Signs 18 New Health Care Bills into Law - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- AMA Sounds the Alarm, Medicare Making Yet Another Attempt to Cut Reimbursement - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Mass Governor Asks Blue Cross to Keep Higher Employer Contribution - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Lifespan and Care New England Plan Monopoly (Again) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dirigo Health: Con Artists, Liars, and Thieves? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- New Orleans: Health Challenges - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- August a Flurry of Activity - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Maine's Dirigo Health Savings One-Third of Original Estimate - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- “Methodolatry”: My new favorite term for one of the shortcomings of evidence-based medicine - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Suzanne Somers’ Knockout: Dangerous misinformation about cancer (part 1) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- A science-based blog about GMO - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- A Not-So-Split Decision - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Military Medicine in Iraq - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The effective wordsmithing of Amy Wallace - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- A Science Lesson from a Homeopath and Behavioral Optometrist - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Join CFI in opposing funding mandates for quackery in health care reform - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Mainstreaming Science-Based Medicine: A Novel Approach - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Those who live in glass houses… - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- J.B. Handley of the anti-vaccine group Generation Rescue: Misogynistic attacks on journalists who champion science - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- When homeopaths attack medicine and physics - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The cancer screening kerfuffle erupts again: “Rethinking” screening for breast and prostate cancer - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- All Medicines Are Poison! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- When Loud Wins: Will Your Tax Dollars Pay For Prayer? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- It’s All in Your Head - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Skeptical O.B. joins the Science-Based Medicine crew - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Tragic Death Toll of Homebirth - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- What’s the right C-section rate? Higher than you think. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Recombinant Human Antithrombin – Milking Nanny Goats for Big Bucks - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Does C-section increase the rate of neonatal death? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Man in Coma 23 Years – Is He Really Conscious? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Why Universal Hepatitis B Vaccination Isn’t Quite Universal - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Ontario naturopathic prescribing proposal is bad medicine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Naturopaths and the anti-vaccine movement: Hijacking the law in service of pseudoscience - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The Institute for Science in Medicine enters the health care reform fray - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Neti pots – Ancient Ayurvedic Treatment Validated by Scientific Evidence - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Early Intervention for Autism - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- A temporary reprieve from legislative madness - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- A critique of the leading study of American homebirth - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Lose those holiday pounds - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Endocrine disruptors—the one true cause? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Acupuncture for Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Evidence in Medicine: Experimental Studies - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Midwives and the assault on scientific evidence - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The Mammogram Post-Mortem - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- An Influenza Recap: The End of the Second Wave - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The End of Chiropractic - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Cell phones and cancer again, or: Oh, no! My cell phone’s going to give me cancer! (revisited) - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- Another wrinkle to the USPSTF mammogram guidelines kerfuffle: What about African-American women? - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- Acupuncture, the P-Value Fallacy, and Honesty - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- The One True Cause of All Disease - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- Communicating with the Locked-In - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- Are the benefits of breastfeeding oversold? - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- Measles - December 20th, 2009 [December 20th, 2009]
- Radiation from medical imaging and cancer risk - December 21st, 2009 [December 21st, 2009]
- Multiple Sclerosis and Irrational Exuberance - December 21st, 2009 [December 21st, 2009]
- Medical Fun with Christmas Carols - December 22nd, 2009 [December 22nd, 2009]
- Lithium for ALS – Angioplasty for MS - December 23rd, 2009 [December 23rd, 2009]
- “Toxins”: the new evil humours - December 24th, 2009 [December 24th, 2009]
- 2009’s Top 5 Threats To Science In Medicine - December 24th, 2009 [December 24th, 2009]
- Buteyko Breathing Technique – Nothing to Hyperventilate About - December 26th, 2009 [December 26th, 2009]
- The Graston Technique – Inducing Microtrauma with Instruments - December 29th, 2009 [December 29th, 2009]
- The “pharma shill” gambit - December 29th, 2009 [December 29th, 2009]
- Ginkgo biloba – No Effect - December 30th, 2009 [December 30th, 2009]
- Oppose “Big Floss”; practice alternative dentistry - January 1st, 2010 [January 1st, 2010]
- Causation and Hill’s Criteria - January 3rd, 2010 [January 3rd, 2010]
- The life cycle of translational research - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- The anti-vaccine movement strikes back against Dr. Paul Offit - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- Osteoporosis Drugs: Good Medicine or Big Pharma Scam? - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- Acupuncture for Hot Flashes - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- The case for neonatal circumcision - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- A victory for science-based medicine - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- James Ray and testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) - January 10th, 2010 [January 10th, 2010]
- The Water Cure: Another Example of Self Deception and the “Lone Genius” - January 12th, 2010 [January 12th, 2010]
- Be careful what you wish for, Dr. Dossey, you just might get it - January 13th, 2010 [January 13th, 2010]
- You. You. Who are you calling a You You? - January 15th, 2010 [January 15th, 2010]
- The War on Salt - January 16th, 2010 [January 16th, 2010]
- Is breech vaginal delivery safe? - January 16th, 2010 [January 16th, 2010]