A new breed of MDs thinks an MBA is the cure for an ailing healthcare system.

Neonatologist David Riley was adept at placing central arterial lines for sick newborns. But navigating the inefficiencies within the healthcare system was a different story. Now, as a second-year student in the Texas MBA at Dallas/Fort Worth program, he is learning the management skills to help keep his industry from flatlining.

Riley graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1997. After his pediatric residency and neonatology fellowship, he became a fully certified neonatologist in 2004. He joined the Pediatrix Medical Group of Texas in 2007 and began caring for newborn babies needing intensive care in hospitals around Fort Worth and Tarrant County. He says he became interested in pediatric medicine because it is equal parts challenging and hopeful.

“Babies are incredibly resilient,” Riley says. “They just have a miraculous ability to heal themselves and get better.” Seeing his young patients improve is particularly significant for him. “It’s gratifying to know that when you have a positive impact, they have their whole life in front of them and you sent them out into the world to realize whatever potential they have.”

For Riley, that potential pushes him through even the most difficult days.

“No matter how hard you’re working and how tired you are, it’s easy to motivate yourself when you’re dealing with those kinds of outcomes.”

As a doctor, Riley says he can see what is working well in healthcare and what isn’t. While health professionals are providing quality care and making innovative discoveries every day, the industry itself could benefit from a more businesslike organization and streamlined processes, he says.

For example, while hospitals are moving from traditional medical recordkeeping to electronic record management, administrative and insurance organizations have been slow to make that change, leading to duplicate records. Riley says that his experience in the healthcare industry encouraged him to enroll in business school, and he hopes he can use his MBA to further reforms.

“If you look at physicians and people in the medical field, they don’t really know too much about business. And when you look at people in industry and certainly when you look at politicians, they don’t understand medical care very well,” Riley says. “I felt like a lot of the decisions regarding policy and the structure for reform and funding were being made in a way that was blind to what matters as far as providing quality care and access to care.”

Riley chose to be proactive and educate himself on the business side of healthcare. He believes that reforms would be more comprehensive if more doctors were informed about business.

“I think some aspects of MBA training should be incorporated into medical school, such as basic management, operations, and finance,” Riley says. “I think physicians should be more involved in management and administrative issues to allow those processes to be better aligned with what goes on at the bedside.”

Riley is not alone in this sentiment. According to the Association of MD/MBA Programs, there are more than 65 dual-degree programs across the United States. Students in these programs earn their MD and MBA simultaneously, learning both the medical and the business sides of healthcare.

According to Riley, his McCombs education has helped him understand how business processes work, and it has given him a new perspective on how healthcare management can be improved.

“Spending a good part of your life in medicine, it’s very easy to essentially have your head in the sand about everything else that is going on around you,” Riley says. “I never really thought a lot in detail about what’s required to run an organization well and efficiently. The biggest thing I’ve gotten from my McCombs experience is that it’s opened my eyes to all these different elements that surround the function of a business, from marketing to accounting to HR.”

Riley believes his business degree will afford him more opportunities both inside and outside of the medical industry. “It’s invaluable,” Riley says. “It’s been incredibly eye-opening to learn how the world works outside of my field.”

Originally Published in Open Magazine, McCombs Today

How much would you pay to save a polar bear? A thousand dollars? A million? According to experts, each polar bear is valued between $27,000 and $13 million, but how was that dollar value determined? Business, Government and Society lecturer Stephanie Jue says the answer is far from simple. Jue’s research applies economic theory to the environment to determine not only the monetary value of nature, but human impact on ecosystems. Jue discussed the process of valuating plant and animal life and the importance of recognizing and honoring that value with students as part of the Undergraduate Business Council’s Faculty Research Series last month.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ Endangered Species Program, there are 448 endangered animal species in the United States, and 559 outside of the United States. An additional 227 species are classified as “threatened.” That all adds up to a total of 1,234 animal species in need of recovery worldwide. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 22 percent of plant life is endangered.

“Species will die and new species will come to life without our input, but we feel guilty,” Jue said. “If we’re killing them off, whether intentionally or not, we’re the only ones that can think about that, and consider that, and do something to counteract that. We know that there is some intrinsic value to having these animals out there in the world.”

That intrinsic value is determined in part by considering true cost economics. “True cost” refers to the negative costs of an object and is difficult to ascertain. The true cost of a bottle of water, for example, includes the costs associated with water filtration and the creation and disposal of the plastic bottle.

“True value” refers to the positive aspects associated with an object. It’s equally difficult to ascertain. For example, the honeybee pollinates one-third of American food crops, valued at about $15 billion. The true value of the bee could be determined by subtracting the outside costs associated with those crops, such as chemicals, water, and labor. However, the value also includes the service that the bee provides, the pollination, and how much it would cost to replicate that service.

“There are so many variables that factor into this,” Jue said. “It isn’t simple at all. If you look at it from Mother Nature’s perspective, everything is priceless, and necessary, and valuable. But we have to look at it from the reality of how humans value things, and we value things based on whether or not they do something for us.”

Undervaluing what nature does can have dire consequences. To demonstrate this, Jue discussed the history of the gray wolves of Yellowstone National Park. In the early 1900s, the wolves were systematically removed from the park. With no predators, elk population multiplied, feeding on saplings and other small bushes. As the new trees disappeared, the songbirds disappeared. Beavers could not build dams and disappeared, and the aquatic life that thrived in the small ponds and streams created by those dams also disappeared. The wolves were reintroduced with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and the unnatural changes began to slowly reverse. Today, more than $50,000 per year is spent to monitor the wolves at Yellowstone.

“Humans made the decision to get rid of the wolves because they didn’t have any value,” Jue said. “After a couple of decades of no wolves, we saw what their real value was. That gives us an indication of what can happen when we misvalue parts of nature.”

It all comes back to the polar bear. Jue said the value of every single species may never be fully determined, nor will the effect that humans have on the planet. However, Jue reminded students that by adopting environmentally friendly habits, they can help remedy any harm caused by human impact.

“The ecosystems as they are, without human interference, run perfectly,” Jue said. “If you look at history and human interference with the environment, we tend to trash everything. That’s unfortunate, but we have the capacity to try and change that and have less of an impact and reverse some of the damages that we’ve caused.”

Reposted from McCombs Today